Camera obscura

I was genuinely flabbergasted and gobsmacked when glancing at old photographs on eBay on Wednesday when I spotted what I thought was a familiar face. A quick glance on my ancestry.com account verified my suspicion and I purchased my great-great-grandmother's photograph.

Uncle Charley's paternal grandmother.

Even better is it replaces the only copy we had that was destroyed in our 2016 house fire. Thankfully I had a fairly low resolution copy I had made of the photo before the fire which is what I had on ancestry.com.

Elizabeth Roberts Weltner Huls was born on January 3, 1843 and married my great-great-grandfather, Captain William Harrison Huls, on July 31, 1864. They had six children, starting with my great-grandfather Alpheus Eugene Huls.

A.E.'s son Charles Henry Huls was born in 1902, so she knew him before her death on January 7, 1904. (The paternal grandmother known by uncle Charley and grandpa Fred was Capt. Huls's second wife, Eliza Potter Binder Huls.)

Now in the past 20 years I have kept an ongoing search for family names, but the only name on this was the photography studio in our hometown.

Friends have asked me how her albumen cabinet card ended up on eBay. The answer is: who knows? She might have sent copies to friends or family. Since her name wasn't on it someone discarded it at some point. I'm just relieved it wasn't thrown away, someone listed it, and I happened to recognize her.

It does make me wonder about other missed opportunities that have possibly passed me by.

Finally, the eBay seller is from Kansas. My g-g-grandfather's widow, the second wife, moved to Kansas after his death. Did she take a box of photos with her? I shall probably never know.

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Thanksgiving greetings

I like to post happier things when I either find them, or remember them. Today's memory is a song grandpa Fred taught us, and before that he taught it to my aunt, father, and cousins. He learned it as a child so I imagine Uncle Charley knew it too.

(sung to the tune of Did You Ever See a Lassie) 

Oh here we come marching,
Our fine feathers arching.
Oh, gobble, gobble, gobble,
Fine turkeys are we. 

We are for Thanksgiving,
As sure as you're living.
Oh, gobble, gobble, gobble,
Fine turkeys are we.

Author Unknown

A search on Google brings up some similar songs but not an identical song. Apparently it changed a bit as it was orally taught to each generation.

However, a similar version was found in a 1902 (the year Charley was born) manual for teachers: Outlines and Suggestions for Primary Teachers:

Oh, see us come marching,

Our fine feathers arching.
We're kings of the barnyard
Plump turkeys are we. 

We strut all so proudly.
We gobble so loudly
Oh, 'Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!'
Plump turkeys are we. 

 

Another similar version is in the April 1904 (the year Grandpa was born) School Work, Volume 3 by Leon W. Goldrich and Olivia Mary Jones:

Oh, see us come a-marching,

Our fine feathers arching,

We're kings of the barn-yard—

Plump turkeys are we; 

 

We strut all so proudly,

We gobble so loudly—

Oh, "gobble! gobble! gobble!"

Plump turkeys are we. 

 

Oh, would you think—scarcely—

That dressed up in parsley,

We kings of the barn-yard

Soon roasted will be?

Oh "gobble! gobble! gobble!"

Plump turkeys are we.

Do you have any family Thanksgiving traditions?

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