Random geneology stuff...

Over the last few years, been doing a lot of genealogy research. Have run into some cool photos that strike a chord deep inside. My great-grandfather was a coal miner in Pennsylvania. Here is a photo of the house they lived in in the early 1900's. My grandmother was born in this house in 1910. It was a mine company house - when the mine closed in the 1920's they left and moved to Cleveland. This photo was taken in 1929. The house burned down in 1932. You know things are tough when your birthplace is listed as "Blackwood, PA" because it is a coal town.

Nothing is left there today.

 

Great family story!

 

Here's a photo from my father's side from 1904. My grandmother is the girl standing against the tree on the far left. My great-grandfather with the big mustache is two over to the right. My great-great grandmother is in front of him. The old lady in the middle is my great-great-great grandmother, born in 1820.

The tall blond guy in the middle is my great uncle, Paul Parduhn. In the 1910's he started a professional football team in Hammond Indiana called the Hammond Pros. The Pros were one of the founding members of the APFA in 1920... which became the NFL in 1922.

A young George Halas played for the Hammond Pros in 1919, before leaving to found the Decatur Staleys in 1920... which moved to Chicago in 1922 and became the Chicago Bears. Halas was with the Bears as a player, coach and owner until 1983....

 

Wow, I have family from Hammond as well.

 

My families history is not well known. But a cool fact is that my grandfather was a boxer and fought Jim Braddock aka Cinderella Man.

boxrec.com/en/boxer/37442

 

Neat thread idea! Genealogy has been my hobby for the last 12 years or so. I never thought to ask if there were any others on here...

 

My wife is really into genealogy and so are members of my mom's side of the family. I am in fact related to somebody famous in American history but I cannot recall who it was.

 

I have thousands of sources catalogued by family name, but there are always a few pieces that stand out. One of my paternal great-grandfathers, Stefan Macko, came to the U.S. in 1907 from a small Slovak village. He settled in Cleveland. His wife and children followed in 1910. When I found the record of their crossing, it was one of those "Wow" moments. I met "Steve and Andy" (great uncles) when I was little, just before they passed away. On this document, they are 8 year old twins crossing the ocean with their mother, and little brother and sister.

The "z" in my last name in the manifest was not their spelling. In the late 1860s, the ruling Hungarians made all aspects of Slovak culture illegal. Every person and town was translated overnight to the Hungarian equivalent, and all land was forfeit- hence the reason my land owning great-grandfather left Europe. So, when searching church records, I'll sometimes find my great grandfather's name as either Stefan or Istvan, Macko or Maczko, and sometimes even in German or Latin. It made my trip to the Family Library in Salt Lake interesting.

My mother's side is a lot easier to research... They've been here since the mid-1600s when the original immigrant, John Houghton, arrived. They were a fruitful bunch, and at last count, there are roughly 30,000 descendants of that original immigrant. Katherine Hepburn comes from the same family. I believe she's my 13th cousin!

Lines 19-23:

 

Here's a photo of the ship he came on:

 

Thankfully, I have two cousins who really love searching for family history. My grandpa owned a bar with his brother and played semi-pro football. On my Mom's side, an uncle was an original member of the Flying Tigers in WWII. All six brothers served and all came back.

My great, great, great grandparents on Dad's side

 

The thing that is a little spooky about the Internet (and particularly Google streetview) is that you can actually visit some of these places virtually.

My namesake ancestors (the Petersons) came from Hetseryd Norregård (Norregard Parish), Hjälmseryd (village), Jönköping (region), Sweden. I have this parish book showing my great-great-grandfather Gustaf Peterson's family - including all their birthdates (my great-great-grandfather was born on March 14, 1833) and the dates that they left the parish and where they went. They lived on "Good Luck Farm".



Well, when I go to check, the farm is still standing... and with the miracle of Google street view I can virtually stand on the street in front of it and look at it


Kinda weird when you see the farm your great-great-grandparents used to live in... still there. The only frustrating part is I can't quite see the farm house... it is behind the trees and no matter where I get Google to "stand" I can't quite get a good picture of it.

 

I have all of them for the different crossings for paternal and maternal lineages, along with maps, port info, routes, etc for the areas that they traveled through.

 

You are very lucky to have these early photos. Modern photography wasn't really "invented" until 1839, and commercial portrait services didn't exist prior to about 1851.

 

I love hearing my family's info, but don't have any time for looking it up. My sister is really into it.

My mom's side (Picard/Du Trois Maisons family) fled France with their heads attached during the revolution. Settled in Quebec. Became farmers. Eventually moved south to Vermont (Shoulda' built that wall!) and then to Boston area.

Dad's family has much deeper roots. Italian Este family (I have landed-gentry on both sides!) ended up in the Carolinas in 1600s, migrated through Appalachia, ended up in Oklahoma.

Like so many others, World War II ended up bringing both families to California. Dad was in the Navy, Mom's parents worked at Douglas (No McDonald then!) and at Max Factor. Mom ended up working @ TRW.

Put it all together, and you've got me!

 

Here's a story about my uncle, who lived a charmed life. Born the youngest child of dirt-poor dairy farmers in Vermont, he went on to serve in the Army Air Corps in WWII, the US Air Force in Korea, West Berlin Airlift, and the beginnings of Vietnam. Retired from the military, worked at Napa State Hospital, then got into the grape business. Tended a highly renown vinyard, selling exclusively to Mondavi (the old man, not the kids!).

Good read about him (caution: May lead to dust particles in the air, cat allergies, onions being cut)
http://napavalleyregister.com/lifes...cle_a7149f22-4c88-5ce0-99fc-223b598524eb.html

 

There was no immigration policy until 1882 - when the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed banning Chinese labor immigration for 10 years. Prior to that, anyone could come or leave, and no one kept any records. After 1882, corresponding with a huge increase in immigration from Europe, immigration policy developed rapidly - limiting who could come, requirements for staying, and ports of entry.

 

And here I thought there were a lot of Petersons There are over 600,000 Este family records at Ancestry.com!

 

Those Italians...

 

Common names are a pain in the butt...

I'm lucky enough to have one line on the wife's side that is completely made up- and unique. The original immigrant in that line abandoned the Austrian military, and ran off with an officer's 14 year old daughter. Landed in the US in 1850 and made up the name "Oishei". Anyone with the name Oishei is pretty easy to trace back... And they are a colorful bunch! I have hundreds of newspaper articles, Google book entries, patents, "fake news", diaries, abandoned families, claims of royalty in court, etc...

 

In a fancy car. My grandmother was the mischievous-looking one in the front middle, Uncle Al mentioned in the link above is the surly kid in the back:



A few years later, visiting the farm. My mom in front, her sister Lorraine, her grandmother, my grandmother (her mom), Uncle Gus, Uncle Al:

 

I knew we had some drama in our family line.....my dad had told me stories about my great grandmother.....Granny as we knew her as, died when I was in my late teen's.



Tonight he showed me this:

http://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com...-hutchinson-murder-ethel-hutchinson-travels-1

CANON CITY NEWS
Leo H. Hutchinson Murder: Ethel Hutchinson travels 1,000 miles to Cañon City to clear her murdered father's name
By Sara Knuth


The Daily Record

POSTED: 05/25/2017 09:43:53 PM MDT

My Granny in the middle, my grandmother on the left.

Stella Hutchinson, center, and Patsy Hutchinson, left, look at Ethel Hutchinson in 1948 in court before Stella's murder trial. "They're looking at me wondering if I'm going to hang in there to help get her acquittal," Ethel Hutchinson said May 17, 2017. (Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center / Courtesy Photo)

Ethel Hutchinson Hardy poses for a photo May 17 at the Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center. (Michael Alcala / Daily Record)
When the neighbors told Ethel Hutchinson that her father was dead, they didn't tell her that he had been shot and killed by her mother.

Instead, she and her husband traveled 200 miles from their home in Baca County to Cañon City to find a crime scene and a family scattered across town. Her mother, Stella Hutchinson, was in jail. Her younger sister, Patsy Hutchinson, had been taken in by a minister and was prepared to stay with friends. And her father, Leo Hutchinson, was dead, with three gunshot wounds in his chest and one in his abdomen.

In the days that followed his April 10, 1948, murder, Stella Hutchinson, 45 at the time, began telling of years spent with a man who "has beaten and abused me repeatedly," she told the Daily Record on April 12, 1948.

Ethel Hutchinson, who was 18, began meeting with her mother's attorney, John Stump Witcher, who told her that if her mother was convicted, Patsy, 15, could end up as a ward of the court.

When her mother's murder trial rolled around in September, Ethel Hutchinson testified about the years of abuse her father inflicted on her family.

"He would fly off the handle over everything," she said April 12, 1948, according to the Daily Record's coverage. "I'm going to stick by my mother."

But 69 years later, Ethel Hutchinson, 87, told the Daily Record that her testimony was false. She traveled from her current home in California to Cañon City on May 17 to clear her father's name.


"He died in print as a beast," she said. "And I don't want that to continue."

Ethel Hutchinson, who has spent the last year compiling letters and documents from the time surrounding the trial, said she felt pressured into testifying on her mother's behalf.

"I made my decision based on what Witcher said. He said, 'Your mother is facing a very serious murder charge,"' she said. "I didn't even read the papers. I was still in shock, basically. And he said, 'And your sister is a minor, and she could become a ward of the court.' I knew I couldn't take care of her. We could hardly take care of ourselves at that point. So, that was basically why I made that decision."


Stella Hutchinson is carried out of the courtroom on a stretcher after fainting in September 1948 during her murder trial. (Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center / Courtesy Photo)
The murder trial

During Stella Hutchinson's September 1948 murder trial, spectators came from miles away.

The crowd was captivated. During testimony, the Daily Record reported on Sept. 22, 1948, that people listened intently even to complex medical testimony about the three bullets that were launched in Leo Hutchinson's chest and the bullet that went through his abdomen.

But most of the attention was placed on Stella Hutchinson.

"Mrs. Hutchinson only showed occasional interest in the proceedings," the Daily Record reported during the trial Sept. 22, 1948. "Occasionally, she listened with interest as the witness described the autopsy."

In testimony later that morning, she "put her head down on the table and sobbed quietly for several moments," the story said, after pieces of Leo Hutchinson's bloody clothing were admitted as evidence.

Later that day, court proceedings were stalled after Stella Hutchinson fainted in Witcher's office.

As she testified later during the trial, she told of incidents ranging from being forced to do farm work after getting knocked out by a hit to a punch that caused her to miscarry a baby.

But during the trial, Ethel Hutchinson didn't know about any of this — District Judge Joseph D. Blunt granted a defense motion to bar witnesses from being in the courtroom during testimony.


Bound copies of the Cañon City Daily Record's coverage of the 1948 murder of Leo Hutchinson are displayed at the Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center. The top story, 'Certainly I Killed Him ... I Don't Have Any Regrets,' is a column by Stella Hutchinson as told to reporter W.T. Little. (Michael Alcala / Daily Record)
"She told a lot of lies on the stand," Ethel Hutchinson said May 17. "I didn't hear what she was saying. I don't think that I could have ever just sat still and listened to her, even though I agreed to help her."

When it was time for Ethel Hutchinson's testimony, she began telling of "her being beaten with a board and of another beating 'because I could not park a truck exactly where he wanted it to be,'" the Daily Record reported.

When it came to her marriages — she had been married twice by the time she was 18 and had a son — "she said she got married 'because I thought that would solve my troubles.'"

The testimony, among others, seemed to help.

On Sept. 28, 1948, Stella Hutchinson was acquitted of murder.

The next day, she learned she would receive half of Leo Hutchinson's $48,000 estate.

By December, Stella Hutchinson was remarried to a commercial photographer, O.B. Daniels, who was in Cañon City during the trial to take photos.

One year after the acquittal, Stella Hutchinson, who later became Stella Daniels, was charged with simple assault and intent to commit murder after using the same .38 Smith & Wesson revolver to shoot in the general direction of her new husband. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Years of Abuse

Though she wanted to set the record straight about her father, Ethel Hutchinson said she didn't live a life free from abuse.

"I was a victim, my dad was a victim, we all were victims," she said.

But her mother was the real abuser, she said.

"Once Patsy was born, I was the step kid then," she said. "It changed totally."

Throughout the years, Ethel Hutchinson said she watched as her mother grew distant from her and close to her sister. In one instance, Stella Hutchinson had beaten Ethel's dog to death, she said, but she left the family dog alone.

Before her father was murdered, Ethel Hutchinson said her mother tried to build a case against him throughout the town.

"She'd tell people in town that 'he did this to me' or that I was this," she said. "She tried to build a case that was not true against him. So, she really was prepared to murder him when she did because she had already built these building blocks of how bad a guy he was."

Ethel Hutchinson said she also tried to pit her against her father.

"She would tell me that Dad thought I was worthless. That was from, you know, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 up to 9," she said. "And then she would tell him that I didn't like him."

But instead of giving in, Ethel Hutchinson said, she formed an alliance with her dad.

"I was nine. And she wasn't around, and Dad did some nice fatherly things, and from that day on, we seemed to have an understanding that this is Stella. We had to deal with her," she said. "But we didn't pay any attention to her. So, when she would say these things to us, insulting, we really just kind of ignored it."

After the trial was over, Ethel Hutchinson said she still was on the receiving end of abuse from her mother and sister. Though she eventually remarried and moved from a home in Pueblo to California, her mother stayed in touch with her son, Dennis, through letters and phone calls.

"They continued on with their same insults," she said. "It was a continuity of how they treated Dad."

The letters Ethel Hutchinson has put together during the past year show written correspondence between her mother, sister and herself in the immediate years after the trial.

In some letters, they ask for money. In others, her mother wrote phrases such as "you are dead to me" and that she hoped that Ethel Hutchinson would one day become an old, lonely woman.

A Happy Life ... And a Warning to Others

In the 69 years since the trial, Ethel Hutchinson has traveled across the country, worked, had another child and was married to a man she loved for "58 years and five months — I always add that five months," she said.

Though her mother followed her son throughout the years, she said she lost contact with her and only learned of her death at 90 years old after coming across her obituary. She said she doesn't know whether or not Patsy Hutchinson is still alive.

"No matter what happens, you always look at the positive. And I do. I might not have met my husband," she said.

On Dec. 23, 1950, Ethel Hutchinson married Andy Hardy in a ceremony at his parents' home in Pueblo. They had met just more than one year earlier through his brother at the cafe where she worked.

"Andy was a terrific guy," she said. "He was a top-notch guy."

After they moved to California with Dennis, they had another son, Randolph Lee.

Today, Ethel Hutchinson said she also wants to use her story as a way to warn other families about potential abuse.

She wants people, "if they read this story, to actually consider what's going on in their own families," she said. "Maybe they'll be able to recognize that there's a potential tragedy coming on if they continue on like I did, you know, like we did in the family."

When she started doing more research last year at the Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center, Ethel Hutchinson met Natalie Bard, who retired from the museum early this year. Since then, the two have formed a close bond, taking trips and spending last Christmas together.

"We've been in contact with letters," Ethel Hutchinson said. "Natalie has just been a good friend. I loved what she said in a letter. She said, 'We are connected.'"

Though she still has a few living relatives, many of those close to her have died. Her husband and son Dennis both died in 2009. Her other son, Randolph Lee, died in 2015.

She said in May that she plans to leave her living trust to the museum, where she met Bard. Shortly after she told her story to the Daily Record, she turned in the paperwork.

But as she lives out the rest of her life, Ethel Hutchinson Hardy, who remains healthy and able to drive 1,017 miles to Cañon City from Hemet, Calif., said she felt that she needed to tell her story.

"I don't know why I'm still here, but I am," she said. "And it must be for this purpose."

Sara Knuth: 719-276-7644, knuths@canoncitydailyrecord.com



Leo Hutchinson's body lays on the parlor floor April 10, 1948, after his wife, Stella Hutchinson, shot and killed him. (Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center / Courtesy Photo)

 

@mtnbikej - That family is pretty easy to trace. If you want census documents, Leo's WW2 draft card, marriage license, or anything else, just say so...

One interesting tidbit... Leo was born in my neck of the woods. Salamanca, New York. That makes you part Yankee.

There are also quite a few docs related to his military service. Leo was a marine, and served on the USS Colorado.