Color My World

Addie May and John Fisher family, New Philadelphia, Ohio, before 1910. Behind their parents: Byron, Zula, Clyde, Verna, Oscar. Image colorized by Ancestry.com using Photomyne.

BONUS: AI Brings New Life to Fisher-Ley Portraits

This blog has always been more about stories than the nuts and bolts of genealogy process. What would you share about your ancestor, sitting around a campfire? What would bring that person to life?

But when I outlined my process, highlighting my Six Holy Grails of Genealogy, all of the exacting steps lead to making connections: with descendants who can shed light on places, the shape of a life, and bring you face to face with your history.

Toward the beginning of this blog in 2010, new connection Noreen Moser shared a view of my great-grandmother, Zula Fisher Ley, I never dreamed of: a family portrait with she and her sister, Alverna, as young girls. This lent another, poignant dimension to Zula’s tragic story of dying of the flu when my grandfather was not yet two, losing the baby girl she was carrying as well. Here she was years before, bright-eyed, innocent, whole life ahead of her.

As I shared in yesterday’s post featuring great-grandfather Vance Foutz’s family, generative artificial intelligence has given us another tool to enhance our views of ancestors long gone. With just a few mouse clicks, Photomyne, an AI service used by Ancestry.com, colorizes and restores family snapshots through layers of automatic filters.

Today, I turned the tool on snapshots from the Fishers and Leys.

Five generations caught in 1896. Clockwise, from left: Telitha (Meredith) English; her nephew, my great-great-great grandfather, John W. Smith; his daughter, my great-great grandmother, Addie May (Smith) Fisher; her son, Clyde V. Fisher, brother of Zula (Fisher) Ley; and my fifth great-grandmother, Martha Jones Meredith. Photo colorized by Ancestry.com.

Seven Generations in Living Color

We can trace Zula’s ancestry through her mother, Addie Mae Smith, to the Merediths and Joneses, from Wales. I originally scanned the above photo from the Combination Atlas Map of Tuscarawas County Ohio, which features an entry tracing the route of my fifth-great-grandparents Martha Jones Meredith and husband John William Meredith from their home in the mountains of Nantyglo, Wales to their settling near Goshen, Ohio in the early 1830s. As to the photo above:

In the accompanying picture of Five Generations taken in 1896, this most worthy old gentlewoman is shown with her daughter, Telitha, with her grandson, John W. Smith and his daughter and her great granddaughter, May, who married William Fisher (my great-great grandparents — Colt), and with their son, Clyde V (Zula’s brother, my great-great uncle).

Combination Atlas Map of Tuscarawas County

John William Fisher’s father’s family originally came from Nordhein-Westphalia in Germany, whereas his mother, Sarah Walters’ family came from Bavaria. (Though her mother, Marty Mathilda Wallace’s parents came from Ireland and England.) The below photo, shared by Noreen Moser, shows my great-great-grandfather John Fisher with his mother, Sarah, at a gathering of his siblings.

back row: Emma, Ellsworth, Della, Barclay, Lily, George, Clara Alice, James front row: Sarah M, John William, Sarah Ann (Walters), Mary J, Henry. Pretty sure J.W. Fisher didn’t have pink hair.

John and Addie Fisher lived their entire lives in Goshen Twp., in a house my mom would point out to me whenever we drove out that way to and from the mall or elsewhere around the home county. A family portrait a little later in the 1910s captured Zula, Verna and their three brothers and parents, also provided by Noreen Moser.

After Zula’s tragic death in 1920, my grandpa Bob went to live with his Fisher grandparents for a time, before coming home to live with his father, Robert Ley Sr. and stepmother in Dover. Before connecting with Noreen and others on Ancestry, the only pictures I’d seen of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother Ley were these touching portraits with my grandpa as a child. I actually wondered what AI could do to “enhance” these, since the original, slightly washed-out colors lend them an appropriate air of mystery and sadness.

Zula Fisher Ley and an infant Robert Earl Ley, Jr.

Robert Earl Ley Jr. and Sr.

My great-grandfather Ley was one of the most prominent dentists in the county, as well as being active in clubs, organizations and politics, a path set by his own Ley ancestors after they emigrated from Germany, and an example his own son followed. Grandpa also joined his father in a joint dental practice in Dover and was working alongside his father when R.E. Ley Sr. succumbed to a sudden heart attack at age 65.

Robert Earl Ley, Sr., in his Dover dental office he shared with son Robert Earl Ley, Jr.

Robert Earl Ley, Sr., and dog.

Lending Color to Family Scenes

Some of my favorite pictures to colorize so far have been everyday scenes of family members — gathering to enjoy a meal, lounging around the yard or house. Here are a few more of Robert Ley, the Fishers, and the young children of Robert Earl Ley, Jr., in the 1950s, including my mother, Janet Ley Foutz.

I hope you enjoy seeing these loved ones in a new light as much as I do!

Robert Earl Ley, Sr., and grandchildren Robert III, Jeanne, Sally and Betsy at his son, Robert Jr.’s, Dover, Ohio home in the 1950s.

A young Janet Ley, left, with brother Bobby and sister Betsy.

Robert Earl Ley, Jr.’s daughters Janet, Sally, Jeanne and Betsy post in front of their car in the 1950s in Dover, Ohio.

An older great-great-grandfather John William Fisher

An older great-great-grandmother Addie May Smith Fisher

Verna Fisher, great-grandmother Zula Fisher Ley’s younger sister, and her husband, Ollin Abbuhl, about 1960. Courtesy Amazon.com user abbuhl4401.

Color Me Enchanted

Erma Johnson rides a bicycle in Dover, Ohio in a series of snapshots near Don Foutz’s home in 1941. The black and white photo, left, is the original. The photo on the right has been colorized by AI.

Photo Colorization Brings New Look to Family History

I probably talk about generative artificial intelligence a dozen times a day at my job. From churning out articles, to tagging content, to even understanding a creative brief and crafting a virtual photo shoot, AI is constantly evolving the toolkit I deploy for my global digital marketing clients.

Being the seismic disrupter it is, AI has now found a way to shake my family tree, too.

In this case, while assembling an entirely different story for this blog, scrolling through snapshots I’d saved on Ancestry.com, I noticed a hint nudging me to “restore your old photo” and try Ancestry’s new filters. What the heck, I thought, and did some clicking.

In the very next moment: WOAH. Like, double WOAH.

Erma Foutz with in-laws Roy and Louise Foutz, Thanksgiving 1949.

Thanksgiving 1949, Revisited

The first photo I tried colorizing was from a series taken at a Foutz family gathering at Thanksgiving, 1949. One of my goals when starting this blog was to share stories of my family’s history in a way that we can relate to, as if we were talking about our aunts and grandpas and cousins, instead of ancestors from hundreds of years ago.

The goal of genealogy, for me, was not plugging in names and dates, but coming face to face with family. I didn’t know what my great-grandfather Vance Foutz looked like. I didn’t know about my grandpa Don Foutz’s brothers, Roy and Carl. I had only met my great aunt Doris later in her life. These were family who walked the same streets and attended the same schools I did in Dover, Ohio.

As I made those connections, I gained access to records, and documents, and photos. Sometimes from distant relatives we didn’t know existed. Sometimes, as in the case of this trove of Thanksgiving pictures, buried in a box we happened to have at home – but whose names and faces and significance could not have been deciphered without first putting in the research.

When I first shared these pictures in this space, my cousin Whitney remarked that it was almost like we could step into the frame, say hello, pull up a chair, join the family. Well I re-experienced that revelation as I used Ancestry.com’s colorization tool on more and more of these shots.

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  Don Foutz and oldest brother Roy Foutz, Thanksgiving, 1949.

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  Great candid of Great-Grandma Laura…

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  Erma Foutz, Thanksgiving Day, 1949

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  Erma Foutz comes in from the dining room to join mother-in-law Laura Foutz, brother-in-law Roy, and second son Bob, 1949

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  Erma Foutz with in-laws Roy and Louise

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Grandparents Don and Erma Foutz in colorized, sharpened images from Ancestry.com.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?

Another series I couldn’t wait to try were photos taken of my grandpa, Don Foutz, with his then-girlfriend, soon-to-be my grandma, Erma Miller, as they biked and posed at his home in Dover in 1941.

Ancestry uses AI technology provided by Photomyne to colorize photos and offer a series of filters you can use to adjust the result, preset filers like Restore, Cool, Warm, Contrast, etc. The effect isn’t perfect: sometimes the spectrum skews too often to red, or the color washes out like the edges of soap bubbles, or people behind the main subject or scenery in the background don’t get the color treatment. You can also auto-adjust the sharpness, but that ended up giving me oddly-focused faces in an otherwise watercolor-washed composition, giving the effect of AI baring its unnatural teeth.

Yes, there could be value in being able to really hand-tune the results, like we’re able to do on even basic social media. But I confess the initial results left me just tickled. Like our relatives stepping out of time and waving hello.

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  Erma Foutz bikes near Race Street, Dover, 1941

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  Don Foutz pedals a bike near his family’s home in Dover, circa 1941.

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  Don Foutz, 1941

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  Erma Foutz outside the Race Street, Dover, Ohio childhood home of her husband, Don

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  Don Foutz with mother Laura Zeigler Foutz, 1941.

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Vance Foutz Family – in Color

Like any old yearbook or photo album revisited, experiencing these classic portraits in a different light helps bring out details that might have been overlooked, like the shades of an expression, or texture in clothes or buildings or objects they used.

But the main effect is almost of meeting these beloved ancestors for the first time, as if they might just have passed by on the street, or posed for an iPhone snapshot at a backyard barbecue.

Maybe since so many of our photos today are filtered, and edited, and glossed to perfection, seeing these classic images with a different treatment, especially if it isn’t foolproof, bring out the life in them all the more.

All I know is I can’t stop looking.

100th Anniversary of Sue Ley’s Birth

Me and Grandma Ley, her house, 1979.

Happy 100th Birthday, Suzanne Abbott Weible Ley

 

I was blessed to grow up in a town where I was only a short drive — or bike ride — from my grandparents.

It’s not so usual today, with families spread across the country, or, in some cases, the globe. But Dover, Ohio had been home to both sides of my family for better than 100 years, with the roots of the Leys stretching back to the next county over in the early 1800s, and the Weibles just south of Dover and its sister city, New Philadelphia, about a decade earlier than that.

It was important to my parents that we grew up knowing both sides of my family, and we sure did. Birthdays, grandparents days at school, rides to and from track and cross country and band practices, piano recitals, spelling bees, Thanksgivings, Christmases and vacations every year to the Carolinas — these were occasions made all the more memorable and sweet by sharing them with my grandparents, my mom’s parents, Bob and Sue Ley.

In fact, I shared the same elementary school, Dover Avenue, with both my mom and grandma Sue. She grew up just about two blocks east of our house right on Dover Avenue. And lived most of her married life within a mile of her childhood home and grade school.

But grandma was a lot closer than that. On the day I was born, June 2, 1976, — so the story goes — she just had a feeling and drove down to our house near Columbus, Ohio. When she and grandpa looked in the window and saw our dog, Shannon, but no mom and dad, they headed straight for Riverside Hospital.

They were there not long after I entered the world. And they were there for so many occasions during my childhood and young adulthood.

Once, when grandma was out hauling me somewhere and a car warning light went on, grade school me helpfully piped up, “Should we check in the manual, grandma?” She got a kick out of that.

Some of my first inklings of freedom as a kid was being able to bike to their house at the top of the hill on Parkview Drive. There, my cousins and brothers and I would play for hours in the pine trees bordering grandpa’s grapevine and apple trees, dubbing out hideouts Cousins’ Castle and the like. Grandma was always ready with a glass of Pepsi with ice to relax with in the shade of their patios. Over the years, the glass wore smooth and squeaky with their constant trips through the dishwasher.

When I was older, she was always ready to request a song or five from their living room piano. And always responded with enthusiastic applause.

We could walk into their house, day or night, and call out and be greeted by them.

She enjoyed sipping cold beers and talking about our adventures. She’d had several herself. She attended Miami University and Kent State University in Ohio — rare, in her generation — and worked in Columbus for the State of Ohio during World War II. She was also, I found out much later, an avid writer and, rumor had it, had authored a book of stories that was secreted away somewhere. They have not turned up.

We were blessed to share her 88 years, 63 of them married to my grandpa, Robert Earl Ley, Jr. But there are many times I wish I could walk right into their house again, pull up a chair, enjoy a Pepsi — or a cold beer — and hear her characteristic laugh.

As with my blog commemorating the 100th anniversary of my grandpa Don Foutz’s birth six years ago, I’m happy to be able to share so many great pictures of my Grandma Ley to celebrate her 100th.  Even happier — so many of these photos have family in them, including me.

They’re a mark of how family was always at the center of my grandparents’ lives. They were blessed with a big one. Seems to me we should find a way to celebrate them both this year — Grandpa’s 100th is Sept. 30 — and get the gang back together again.

Sue Ley: 88 Years in Photographs

(Scroll to view the gallery below, or click any photo for a closeup slideshow.)

Beatrice (M.A.) Weible and son Robert Colt, left, and Suzanne Abbott, about 1918.

Sue Weible and brother Robert Colt (Arry), 1918.

Sue Weible about the time of her high school graduation, 1936.

Miami University yearbook in Sue Weible’s early college years.

Sue Weible about the time of her marriage to Bob Ley.

A series of shots of Sue Weible about the time of her marriage to Bob Ley.

A series of shots of Sue Weible about the time of her marriage to Bob Ley.

A series of shots of Sue Weible about the time of her marriage to Bob Ley.

A series of shots of Sue Weible about the time of her marriage to Bob Ley.

Sue and Bob Ley about the time of their 1943 marriage in Oxford, Ohio.

Sue and Bob Ley family, minus son Robert III, 1968.

Bob and Sue Ley attend the wedding of their oldest son, Bob III, in Germany.

Bob and Sue Ley attend the wedding of their daughter Janet to Fred Foutz in 1975.

Bob and Sue Ley greet their grandson, Colt Foutz, shortly after his birth.

Bob and Sue Ley with their oldest grandchildren, 1978. (More would follow!)

Bob and Sue Ley attend a backyard picnic with the Foutzes in 1980.

Bob and Sue Ley attend a backyard picnic with the Foutzes in 1980.

Bob and Sue Ley with children, 1984.

Bob and Sue Ley with children and grandchildren, 1984.

Bob and Sue Ley with grandchildren, 1984.

Bob and Sue Ley at their home in Dover, Christmas 1987.

Bob and Sue Ley with Foutz grandsons Dan, Colt and Sam (front), 1992.

Bob and Sue Ley with cousins Dorothy and Scoop Weible, 1990s.

A photo from the reception following Sue Ley’s funeral, 2007. We definitely felt her presence, and miss her still.

 

Sue Ley 100th Birthday Slideshow

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Zula Ley: Little-Known Fact #3

A very young Robert Earl Ley Jr. and his father, Robert Sr.

Secret Wedding for Zula Fisher & Earl Ley?

There are certain major checkboxes in the Genealogy-by-numbers game. Birth and death are the bookends. And, if a particular branch should bear fruit, marriage the node not-quite-in-between.

Know those dates and you’ve got the basic sketch of a life’s trajectory. But what’s behind a date? Pair it with a location and you start to have a story.

We’re born where our parents’ lives began to blossom, sometimes in the stomping grounds of previous generations, often in a new place, with new possibilities.

We pass away at the terminus of a hopefully long journey, the many bends and dips and peaks along the way often not documented as boldly, yet significant in their bearing on life’s course.

The place we’re married, now, that can be a waypoint with ties to our youth, the places where parents raised us; or to the place where we fell in love, got our starts; or even someplace random or dreamy in its romance, significant unto itself.

And of course the stories get deeper beyond mere dates and places. It’s more than mere rite of passage. A party, a reunion — and union — of relatives (some sober, some significantly less so), a crossing of a particular threshold, an adult declaration of commitment.

Yeah, I bet there’s a lot of stories tucked in there.

In my research, dutifully documenting these dates of significance for relatives on various branches of the tree, for those in Ohio in the early decades of the 20th century a particular place dots biographical records enough it begins to coalesce into an arrow pointing to … West Virginia. Specifically, Ohio and Brooke counties.

Today, we’ll take a look at Wellsburg, W. Va., county seat of Brooke, and an occasion in summer, 1917.

Wellsburg, ‘Gretna Green’ to Ohio, Pennsylvania Elopements

The official record reads that Robert Earl Ley and Zula Lucrece Fisher were married June 27, 1917. The place, with a little more digging, is Wellsburg, W. Va.

But the newspaper announcement of their marriage — and the timing some six months later — reveals a bit more.

From the New Philadelphia, Ohio, Daily Times, Dec. 19, 1917:

Wedding Announcement

Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Fisher announces the marriage of their daughter, Mary Zula Lucrece Fisher to Liet. Dr. Robert Earl Ley, son of former County Treasurer Charles Ley and Mrs Ley of East avenue. The marriage took place at Wellsburg, W. Va. June 27, 1917.

Dr. and Mrs. Ley wil spend their Christmas vacation in the East, after visiting relatives and college friends of Dr. Ley’s in Cleveland. They will be the honored guests at several social events while in Cleveland.

Mrs. Ley is a graduate of the New Philadelphia high school in the class of 1932. During the past two years has been teaching in the Dover schools.

Dr. Ley, is a graduate of Western Reserve Dental college and for the past year and half has been practicing in Dover.

Both Dr. and Mrs. Ley have a host of friends and relatives in New Philadelphia and Dover, and the announcement of their wedding will come as a surprise.

“The announcement of their wedding will come as a surprise,” OK! And to their friends in two cities at that. OK!

Also significant in the timing is that it’s not just six months after their nuptials, it’s just about nine months exactly before the birth of their son, my grandpa, Robert Earl Jr., Sept. 30, 1918.

Interesting, eh?

I am sure there are some stories in those intervals of six and nine months, respectively. The story of Wellsburg, though, is documented in a number of places.

Wellsburg served as a famous “Gretna Green” in the U.S. for its fortuitous lack of a waiting period before marriage. Thousands of couples each year crossed from Ohio and Pennsylvania to wed. As surrounding communities enacted longer waiting periods before couples could tie the knot, the flood increased — more than 4,000 couples were married before Christmas Day in 1933; the annual tide swelled to 10,000 by 1936. In 1937, the county responded to pressure from parents in Pittsburgh, among other municipalities, and toughened its laws.

So, Great-Grandma and -Grandpa were products of the time. But as it turns out, there’s another twist to this story.

 

Great-great Grandparents John and Addie Fisher are front, center. Great-grandma Zula is front, left. Sister Alverna is front, right. In the back are brothers Byron, Clyde and Oscar.

Fisher Sisters Tie Knot on Same Day?

June 27, 1917 was a Wednesday. Wellsburg was a little over an hour away — 65 miles — down present-day 250E and 22E toward Pittsburgh.

Did 23-year-old dentist Earl and 21-year-old teacher Zula sneak off on a weekday alone to get hitched? As it turns out, probably they did not.

Although I could find no newspaper announcing the wedding of Zula’s younger sister, then 19-year-old Alverna, and 21-year-old Olin Abbuhl, family records on Ancestry.com all reported the same marriage day for the siblings. Curious. And could be wrong.

But diving for the actual records reveals this: at the top of page 238 in the Brooke County wedding registry you’ll see Earl and Zula; at the bottom of page 241 you’ll find Olin and Alverna. Although they recorded Earl’s age as a year older than he really was, only the inaccuracy for Alverna bears any legal implications. At 19, she fell two years short of the age requirements — though there was no checking. So the license records her age as 21.

The lack of a wedding announcement for Olin and Alverna — even their obituaries in 1962 and 1977 do not report their wedding date — leaves several possibilities. Were both sisters wed in secret? Were Olin and Alverna wed officially, with Earl and Zula deciding in the moment to also tie the knot? Not likely, due to Alverna’s (actual) age.

We don’t know the exact details now. But the facts of date and place certainly tell an interesting story.

 

Zula Ley: Little-Known Fact #2

A 1918 portrait shows my great-grandmother, Mary Zula Lucrece (Fisher) Ley, and her newborn son, my grandfather Robert Earl Ley Jr.

Zula Fisher, Aspiring Film Actress

One of the most striking portraits in my family’s collection is that of my great-grandmother, Zula Lucrece (Fisher) Ley, holding her infant son, my grandpa, Robert Earl Ley, Jr.

The portrait is made more poignant, certainly, by knowing the rest of their story.

How Zula, at 24, would die of influenza while pregnant with her second child, a daughter. And grandpa grew up for a time in the care of Zula’s parents, John William and Addie May, before rejoining his father and stepmother’s household years later.

Zula’s beauty and youth are all the more touching and tragic, knowing more details of her character.

A New Philadelphia Daily Times story from when she was 20 captures her foray into national beauty contests designed to screen test potential movie stars.

Zula Fisher Cracks 1916’s Top 100

From the front page, Tuesday, May 9, 1916:

The beauty and brains contest, a nation wide enterprise, which, under the guidance of the World-Equitable Motion Picture Corporation, has been running for he past eight months in the Photoplay Magazine, is drawing to a close. Lillian Russell, one of the judges, has made the first selection.

Miss Zula Fisher of New Philadelphia, one of the original candidates, was selected by Miss Russell and is one of the hundred who will enter the final elimination. The elimination is now going forward to select the eleven successful candidates.

Miss Zula Fisher, when the contest originated, was prevalied upon to send her photograph with the result that when the eight thousand likenesses were gone over she was selected as one of the hundred most likely film subjects by Lillian Russell. The contest called for an equal amount of brains and beauty. It was essential for the candidate to write a letter in her own hand-writing, stating her reasons for desiring to become a film actress. The applicants, or candidates were then grouped as to the section of the country in which they lived and two candidates from five different sections will finally be chosen. Lillian Russell, Sophie Irene Loeb, a noted New York society writer, William A. Brady, the famous theatrical manager, are the judges. There will be ten winning candidates from the United States and one from Canada.

The eleven successful young ladies will be taken to New York, a month will be devoted to teaching them the value of various dramatic angles, and then those who show proper interest and sufficient ability, will become permanent members of the World and Equitable stock companies, and at goodly salaries appear in films.

Lectures, theatre parties, studio lessons and a number of events are carded for the successful candidates and it is very likely that Miss Fisher, will be one of the successful entrants.

Pretty neat, eh? Considering the obvious beauty of subsequent generations of Ley girls (and presumably, Fisher girls, too), and a connection to a certain modeling aunt of mine, Heather Ley, Zula’s youngest granddaughter.

Would have been nice — awesome, even — to lay eyes on her contest photo, or her entry write-up. Alas.

A quick search of Photoplay magazines from the period reveals what we (probably) already knew: Zula didn’t make the cut. Seems the contest was done and dusted as early as February that year, but the magazine and film corp kept the public in suspense. How might life have changed for Zula — and us, her descendants — had her film dreams played out?

Thursday, another fun fact — and mystery — from her life a year or so later.