Sherman Foutz: Contrasting Obits Still Yield Clues

Second Great-Uncle Sherman S. Foutz

More than One Way to Relate Life and Death

When my wife and I encounter the inevitable errors in daily newspapers — or, beginning our career as reporters, lapse into them ourselves — we often trot out my teasing twist on a saying (from somewhere): “History went and got itself up in a great… big… damn… hur… ray.”

To put it more coarsely, in the course of reporting a story and turning it around on a daily news cycle: shit happens.

Bad enough when this is part of the fluid daily record, working up dispatches on city council meetings and business transactions and arrest warrants and base hits. Somehow, pathetically, worse still when publishing those items submitted by the public for posterity, for the milestone sections of births, graduations, weddings, funerals.

In my first gig as entertainment and features writer for the Sandusky Register, I also manned the Saturday obit desk. And it was impressed upon me — right away — to follow a template, type it up slowly and triple-check my work.

Oh, and when gathering the info yourself, never to trust a single-only, no matter how well-meant, source. “If your mother says she loves you, CHECK IT OUT.” In other words, verify all info.

Well, leave it to life to allow shit to keep happenin’.

And we encounter these maxims time and again in genealogy, too. The yeoman volunteers who pore over countless census pages of centuries-old script, deciphering names that do not belong to their family tree, and doing so… erratically. Over-zealous neophyte researchers who, in their breathless haste, mistakenly prune a branch here, graft an alien trunk there, yielding cascading crops of ill-gotten family fruit. Or those who trot out a sweet, but still quite often dead wrong reasoning: because grandma said.

Remember? “If your mother says she loves you, CHECK IT OUT.”

Newspapers are wonderful troves of info. And certainly, they have been indispensable in helping to decipher what it is our case study on genealogy in my family: untangling the life, death and descendants of my great-grandfather Vance Cleveland Foutz’s oldest brother, Sherman Foutz.

When I first looked into Sherman’s story, starting in 2008 and documenting for the first time in 2010 in this blog, we had far more questions than answers. Slowly, painstakingly, we made the necessary connections, in the public record and in person with distant relatives, to fill in many missing pieces. By last year, and a series of posts tracing the family’s life in Pennsylvania through several newspaper articles, we’d put the wraps on many a mystery.

One useful tool: not just settling for one clipping of a newspaper article, but combing through related editions in the dozens of active newspapers in the early part of the 20th century. Just like in the maxim for checking out what your darling, single source says, relying on multiple versions of a milestone event can assemble a full, richer composite of the life and times you’re researching. Once, of course, you weed out the red herrings.

On Sherman Foutz’s life, I started with the yellowed clipping reporting his death that my great-grandfather had kept for nearly 55 years before his own passing. Due to the hands which cut into the newspaper, there was no month, day or year, no attributed publication. That data was to be gained from other sources — the gravestone, the death record from Denver, Colo. Curiously, though, one mystery was brought about by a simple omission — this first obituary, which I later identified as from the Harrisburg Telegraph, listed his wife, Elizabeth, and daughter, Grace, but no mention of his son, Oscar; daughter-in-law, Florence; or local grandsons.

A few years and a paid subscription to newspapers.com later, I dug up a death announcement, published the day after Sherman’s death, also in the Telegraph, which yields additional clues: age at death, address in Harrisburg, a sketch of his career with the Knights of the Maccabees and recent job change, and — voila! — mention of Oscar and his son’s address… in Arizona!

The other day, not looking for any info on Sherman, but still trying to trace more on Oscar, who doesn’t pop up again for us until his mother’s death in 1945, I found a curious third obituary. This one published in the Harrisburg Daily Independent, also on the day after Sherman died. From that Tuesday, April 6, 1915 edition:

William (sic) S. Foutz Prominent Maccabee Succumbs From Long Illness

Word was received here of the death of William (sic) S. Foutz, 135 North Summit street, who died near Denver, Col., yesterday where he had been ill for some time. He was 47 years of age. For seventeen years he was deputy and organizer of the Maccabees of the World.

For the past year Mr. Foutz was unable to attend to any business and on January 1 he left for Colorado. He is survived by his wife and daughter, Grace, of this city, and a son, Oscar, of Arizona. No arrangements for the funeral have been made, but interment will be made at Bowerstown (sic), Ohio.

So, some significant errors in the printed record here, most notably Sherman’s renaming and the misspelling of his hometown of Bowerston. But had I stumbled upon this article first, perhaps through some creative searching of the archives, I would have still gotten the tid bit on Oscar’s western location, and some additional details on how his work had suffered from his illness. No update on his change in career — for all we know, he still could have been working for the Maccabees, according to this record — and thus, I view with skepticism the specific “seventeen years” summation of his duties. But between the sources, we get a richer picture, provided we’ve done a bit more gathering of wool and smoothing out the rough parts.

“If your mother says she loves you, CHECK IT OUT.”

April 1915 obituary for Sherman Foutz lists only his wife and daughter as survivors. From the Harrisburg Telegraph.

Son Oscar Foutz is listed as a survivor — and living in Arizona — in Sherman Foutz’s 1915 death announcement.

 

 

Fat, Happy Farm Life for Gideon Pfouts

This pic isn’t from the inside of the legendary Foutz homestead, but gives an idea of what an 1800s farmhouse kitchen looked like.

Gideon Pfouts: ‘Never Missed Meal at Home’

Uncovered an interesting morsel from the life of third-great-grandfather Gideon Pfouts in a second obituary.

It’s been a few years since a research trip to Puskarich Library in Cadiz. Thumbing through the microfilm records, I found a plain, practical tribute to what I imagine was a plain, practical man.

As youngest son of German immigrant and Ohio pioneer Michael, Gideon Pfouts lived his whole life on farms in Harrison County, especially the 80 acres he’d tended for some 70 years south of Bowerston.

When he died in February 1911, at 89, the nearby Cadiz Republican printed this dispatch, noting his status as “an aged and respected citizen.”

But combing through online records at newspapers.com, I found a nice alternative news item, from one county over. In the New Philadelphia Daily Times, we get a less formal look at great-great-great-Grandpa Gideon:

86, NEVER MISSED A MEAL AT HOME

Bowerston, Feb. 20: — Gideon Fouts, aged 89, who died here last week of pneumonia never missed eating a meal at home during his entire life. He leaves four sons.

I’d like to think that meant many, many years of meals with family, likely after a long day of chores and tasks around the homestead.

The four sons mentioned as survivors, of course, were his youngest: John, David, Nathaniel and Nelson, at least two of whom continued to tend the farm, as indicated by Gideon’s will, which we haven’t yet detailed in this space but… will.

His oldest children, daughter Tabitha and my great-great-grandfather Jonathan, had passed away in 1874 and 1900, respectively.

Check out the original clipping from the Daily Times here.

Addendum: Grace Foutz’s Fishy Birth Year

Grace Foutz Chaney and husband Fred are buried in Longview Cemetery near Bowerston, Ohio, near her parents Sherman and Elizabeth Foutz. The birth year etched into her stone to match her husband’s is incorrect.

The Facts on Grace Foutz’s Birth

Call this item a correction.

In yesterday’s post, which chronicled the teaching career of Grace Foutz Chaney, and her life, post-marriage, in Uhrichsville, Ohio, I recounted the strange inaccuracies in Grace’s birth year following her marriage to Fred Chaney in December 1915.

Censuses of 1920, 1930 and 1940 all get it wrong. Even her gravestone in Longview Cemetery near Bowerston botches the date.

Which leads me to believe the error was probably intentional. And since the fibbing starts after Grace becomes Mrs. Fred Chaney, maybe that’s got something to do with it.

But I was wrong when I wrote:

But never fear: Grace’s 1970 obituary finally gets her age right….

Actually, the Times-Reporter obit never mentions Grace’s birthdate or age at all. So I thought I’d lay out how we know the truth from the lies — even those etched in stone.

Her definitive birth day and year we find via Ancestry.com in the Ohio Births and Christenings Index of 1821 to 1962. The actual film is not viewable online at Ancestry or FamilySearch.org, but here’s a screenshot of the index entry:

The censuses of 1900 and 1910, first in Sherman and Elizabeth Foutz’s home in Washington D.C., then Harrisburg, Pa., report Grace’s age as 9, then 19. Because the census-takers visited the Foutz homes in June 1900 and April 1910, respectively, the age is right and matches her birth year of 1890.

Then the official record gets fishy.

Erroneous Records Retain Grace Foutz’s Youth

Grace Foutz marries Fred Chaney on Dec. 18, 1915 in Wheeling, W. Va. This is all corroborated and matched up to the Grace we know in the 1969 Times-Reporter article on her life — which, nonetheless, is off by one year for her grandmother Rebecca Foutz’s death (she met Fred after traveling to Ohio for the funeral) and her marriage later that year.

Their marriage document begins the wackiness, listing Grace’s age as 24 (she turned 25 in September 1915) and Fred’s as 22 (he is just 19).

The 1920 federal census finds the couple in Uhrichsville, Ohio. Taken in February, before either of their birthdays that year, Fred is listed as 24, the age he will in fact turn in that July, while Grace is reported to be 26. She is really 29, and will turn 30 in September.

In 1930’s census, taken in April that year in Uhrichsville, Fred is 33 (correct) and Grace is listed as 34, meaning she has somehow aged just 10 years since her marriage 15 years prior. She is really 39. The record also list’s Fred’s age at first marriage as 19 (correct!), but Grace’s as 20, which doesn’t even match the incorrect age recorded in their marriage license. But at least we’re being consistent in being consistently off.

1940 — Uhrichsville. Another April, ten years later. Fred, 43. Right! Grace, 44. NOT! She’s 49 and will be 50 that September.

Fred’s obituary in September 1955 does get his age right at death, at 59. And his side of their memorial in Longview Cemetery is correct.

But Grace’s obit fails to mention her age or birth date. Maybe because, with no survivors nearby (and my great-grandfather Vance having passed away two years prior), there may be few family members to supply the correct information.

But her death record in Ohio gets it right. Well, at least her age. Here’s another screenshot from an Ancestry.com transcription of the actual record. My guess is that the death date — March 27, 1970 — and her (correct) age, 79, appeared on the record. The transcriber then did the math backwards and got 1891 for the birth year, when we know — don’t we fellow genealogy heads? — that Grace’s birthday in September makes 1890 the matching date.

And that’s how we know several documents for decades got Grace’s age wrong. My guess is that since Fred died 15 years prior, the gravestone had the birth year of her fancy — one matching Fred’s — etched on her side, with the death year waiting.

But Wait — Are Grace and Fred Related?

Let’s train our thoughts on the original departure from reliable fact. Why would Grace lie about her age at the time of marriage? True, Fred, at 19, seems a bit younger. But not all that unusual for the time.

Could he have been her student? Seems unlikely, since her profile in 1969 claims she met Fred in Harrison County on the occasion of her grandmother’s death in May 1915. Still, the article got other facts wrong.

Consider, for a moment, that the article may have got the circumstances right. And consider what’s left out. Grace’s father Sherman died in April 1915, and a cousin, Carl Coleman, in March, both of tuberculosis. All were buried in Harrison County. Perhaps the Foutzes — widow Elizabeth and kids Oscar and Grace — spent extensive time that year home in Harrison County.

If that’s the case, Grace’s and Fred’s abbreviated courtship of seven months, and marriage away from Ohio and Pennsylvania, could make sense.

But also consider the circumstances under which they met. Harrison County farming life in the 1800s was tightly knit. The same families who farmed together are buried together, and the names adorn the mailboxes today. Still, who is most likely to be attending the same funerals, particularly three months in a row? Family.

Fred Chaney’s mother’s maiden name, Wilson, is the same as Grace’s mother’s. Some preliminary poking around Ancestry trees and census records shows one of Elizabeth’s older brothers, William, born some 24 years before her, has a name (and birth and death dates, allegedly) that match a William Wilson who married an Ellen Dixon. They were parents of a Mary Wilson who matches the birth year of the Mary Wilson from Harrison County who married Emerson Chaney, Fred’s father.

So, could Fred Chaney’s grandpa, William Wilson, be Grace’s mom’s brother? Making William Grace’s uncle, and Mary — Fred’s mom — Grace’s cousin.

It could explain why they never had children, or acted wacky about their ages. But it does deepen the mystery.

Dover, New Phila Foutzes Connected by Football, Genes

Don Foutz, left, and H. Earl Foutz reminisce in 1974 about the pass Don of Dover threw that Earl of Phila hauled in for an interception and 85-yard return for a touchdown that won the 1929 rivalry game.

Foutz-to-Foutz Pass a Familial Feat

In the yellowed newspaper clipping, Don Foutz wears a turtleneck and a smirk. He looks less formal than the man in the suit and tie standing next to him, a guy also named Foutz, but also less than thrilled to be reliving a shared moment on the football fields of their youth.

Maybe because the moment happened to be one of the few that didn’t go a teenage Don Foutz’s way, particularly against rival New Philadelphia.

Maybe, too, because aside from a fabled pass that went the wrong way for Dover’s Tornadoes (and the right for Phila’s Quakers), the two men appeared to share little else.

Well, a shared name, in Foutz. But as the article says, the two men “are not related.”

It’s what they thought that November day in 1929; it’s what they believed 45 Novembers later on the eve of another annual rivalry football game.

So I guess it’s OK that my first post here in seven months is so long in coming since it will undo more than 100 years of missed conceptions and forgotten connections. Because the article’s wrong. The Dover and New Phila Foutzes are related.

Don Foutz’s Errant Pass Gives Earl Foutz Glory

A series of Tornadoes Time Warp posts in 2010 thoroughly documented Don Foutz’s football glory days from 1929-31. Among his exploits against hated rival New Philadelphia:

• Scoring on an early run and throwing a 4th-quarter TD pass in a 13-7 Dover victory in 1930
• Piling up a school-record 220 rushing yards (it would stand for 64 years) and 2 TDs in a 27-6 Dover victory in 1931

Grandpa was a fixture in print that senior season, as Dover notched a best-ever 10-1 record and #5 state ranking, an opener for a stretch of football and basketball dominance under Coach Hermann Rearick and grandpa’s successor at halfback, Doc Kelker, that briefly made Dover Ohio’s city of champions.

But his legend faded quickly and he settled into the daily routine, raising three kids and working for a Ford dealership before following his father and two older brothers into the steel mill.

Occasionally, the Dover Daily Reporter would catch up with the old Crimson Flash, as in a 1961 article about son Donn’s rushing exploits for Dover. The 1974 article, however, focused on a rare miscue — a year before Don Foutz played the hero against New Philadelphia, he sealed Dover’s fate with an interception to opposing player Earl Foutz. Read all about it by clicking the thumbnails below.

In addition to sharing details of the 1929 contest as a preview to the rivalry’s 70th installment, the article states: “that game marked the first time Don and Earl — who are not related — ever met.” While I don’t dispute the truth of the football covered in the article, I thought I’d dig a little more deeply into the genealogy.

Sharing a Common Great-Great Grandfather

Earl and his brother, Dick Foutz, were well-known around Dover and Phila, and to my family, as the operators of Foutz Appliances on Tuscarawas Avenue in New Philadelphia. I even remember as a kid asking about the cross-town Foutzes, but being told we weren’t related.

As it turns out, grandpa Don was third cousin to Earl and his brothers Dick and Lloyd. The connection goes back to where our Foutz — originally, Pfouts — ancestors started in Ohio, a couple dozen miles east near Bowerston.

According to well-documented research, Michael Pfouts — Don’s and Earl’s second great-grandfather — emigrated from the lower Neckar River region of Wuertemberg, Germany in 1787. He first settled in Washington County, Maryland, where he probably farmed with other German immigrants. He married a woman named Catharine in Maryland in 1799, and over the next 26 years they had 8 children — about half in Maryland and, beginning with Jacob in 1811, the rest in Harrison County, Ohio.

The early Pfoutses owned several parcels of land throughout Monroe and North townships, on which they farmed for the better part of 150 years. Gideon Pfouts, my third-great-grandfather (grandpa Don’s great-grandfather), farmed 80 acres along what is now Grundy Ridge and Mill Hill roads south of Bowerston. John, a brother more than a decade Gideon’s senior, farmed an area in the southeast corner of Monroe Township with siblings Jonathan and Elizabeth Pfouts. Although his homesteading siblings would never marry, John wed relatively late in life, marrying Irish immigrant Margaret Sprowls in 1850, when he was 43 and she was 27.

John and Margaret Pfouts are Earl’s great-grandparents. They’d have four children. Their second, born July 3, 1854 on the farm, was named Andrew J. Pfouts. That’s Earl’s grandpa. I dipped into the spreadsheet I started keeping in 2010 to track all the many (related) Foutzes (Pfoutses) from census to census in 19th century Harrison County. There, in 1860, was five-year-old Andrew in the home of John and Margaret Pfouts.

Earl and brother Richard would take over the store their father, James Howard Foutz, began on Tuscarawas Avenue in New Phila in 1920. (A talented brother, Lloyd, would perform as a musician around the country before dying young in 1961.) The connection between our families is confirmed by J. Howard Foutz’s 1901 marriage certificate to Effie Leggett of Carroll County. The certificate names Andrew J. Foutz and Mary Ayers of Harrison County as Howard’s parents. A 20-year-old James H. Fouts appears in their household in the 1900 census, the only one between his 1880 birth and 1910, 1920, 1930 and 1940 censuses documenting his married life with Effie and the kids in New Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, Gideon would marry Delilah Jones in 1843. Together, they’d raise six children. Their oldest, Jonathan Foutz, would marry Rebecca Caldwell and have seven children of their own. Their very youngest, born in 1887 in Bowerston, was Vance Cleveland Foutz, my grandpa Don Foutz’s dad.

The final resting places of our Foutz cousins mirror our own clan’s trek from the farms of Harrison to the city life of Tuscarawas county. John and Margaret Pfouts are buried with Michael and the rest of the original Pfoutses in Conotton Cemetery, while Andrew and Mary Pfouts are buried in Grandview Cemetery near Scio.

James Howard Foutz is buried, with Effie and infant daughter Mary, in East Avenue Cemetery, New Philadelphia. Son H. Earl and wife Isabel Marie Foutz are buried at Maple Grove Cemetery in Dover.

Earl outgained Dover by a crucial 85 yards in that 1929 contest; he outlived my grandfather by 13 years. I wonder what they’d chat about, today, if they’d lived to see the roots of their family history reconnected.

Caleb Foutz’s Birthday Buddies | Happy Birthday Week

This bouncing baby boy just turned 61. My dad, Fred Foutz, is shown basking after a bath in his first year, 1952. My youngest, Caleb, was due June 5, 2013, but born 6 days earlier.

Family Birthdays – Late May & Early June

Count it among the weirdest ways I’ve been awoken, ever.

This was in our first year in Chicago, which would have been, oh, 12 years ago now. I’m renting one of those cheap apartments attractive to upwardly mobile professionals and the overly desperate.

On the other side of 2 a.m., thuds, shouts. A wayward husband or boyfriend returns from places wayward and otherwise friendly. At least, more friendly than what he walks into: thuds, shouts.

His girl wants to know where he’s been, and why for so long. She lays into him in the kind of keening shrill typical of power drills, audible to an insomniac dog, or sleep-deprived neighbors.

The only words distinct belong to his defense: “But… um… but… see… but it’s my birthday week.”

His birthday week? Gee, now if I’d known that I would have welcomed them into my apartment to stage their battle WWF-style on my living room rug. Or at least had earplugs at the ready.

His birthday week. It’s been an inside joke for my wife and me ever since. And handy in all sorts of situations:

Forget to change the kids’ morning diapers? But… it’s my birthday week.

Fail to pick up the two baskets’ worth of folded laundry at the end of the bed? See… it’s my birthday  week.

For this post, I thought I’d play a little Baby Pool Bingo in reverse, looking at the lineup of birthdays brand new Foutz Caleb could have shared with ancestors past (and present). For these purposes, “birthday week” extends 7 days before and after Caleb Oliver’s actual birth date of May 30, 2013.

Enjoy!

One Week Before Caleb’s Birthday

22 — Birthday of Johann Jacob Zeigler

Great-great grandfather J.J. Zeigler was born in 1827 in Wuertemberg, Germany. He emigrated to America as a young man and married another German immigrant, Elizabeth Duerr. They farmed near Zoar. His died in 1897, when my great-grandmother Laura Zeigler Foutz was a teenager. Foutz family legend claims he was shot and killed; Zeiglers contend — a bit more rationally I think, seeing as there is no newspaper evidence of an unsolved murder — he died of old age.

This picture from the first decade of the 1900s finds us at the Heavilin farm along Hissem Road in Harrison County, Ohio. Pictured in the front row, from left, are: Harry Heavilin, Colt’s third great-grandmother Phoebe Amanda (Campbell) Palmer and Harry’s wife, Hannah Elizabeth (Palmer) Heavilin. Harry and Hannah’s children are standing behind them.

24 — Birthday of Phoebe Amanda (Campbell) Palmer and Michael Palmer

Family legend has it — I have found nothing to prove it false — that third-great grandparents Phoebe and Michael were born on the same day. She, in 1824 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He, in 1821 in Harrison County, Ohio, where they made their lives farming and raising around nine children, including their oldest, George Silvester Palmer, father to Viola (Palmer) Johnson, born June 1 (see below).

Janet Louise Ley

25 — Birthday of Janet Louise (Ley) Foutz

Mom! Born in 1952 in Dover, Ohio. Happy 61st!

25 — Birthday of Thomas Moreland

Otherwise known as great-great aunt Ida Foutz’s husband, and cousin Dawn James’s great-great grandfather. Hey, he was born 86 years before my mom in Bowerston, Ohio, old stompin’ grounds of the Foutzes and Morelands.

 

26 — Birthday of Delbert and Della Johnson

You’ll find twins on both sides of my family — of both my father’s and mother’s mothers’ branches (Johnson and Weible, respectively) — but always a few generations back, and not in my direct line. But let’s acknowledge the 1904 birth of Delbert and Della. Ain’t they cute? They were siblings of my great-grandfather Charles. Delbert died in 1961; Della (by then a Weber) in 1978.

Olaf Knutson Rekublad

28 — Birthday of Olaf Knutson Rekublad

From the Knutson side, one of Caleb Oliver Foutz’s namesakes. Mom Katie’s great-great grandfather was born in 1839 in Telemark, Norway, son of Knudt (get it?) Alfsen Leirbrek and father to Oliver Albert Knutson. Olaf made his home and farm in Northwood, Worth County, Iowa, where the homestead remains in the family to this day.

 

29 — Birthday of Doris Pauline (Foutz) Waddington

Great Aunt Doris was born in May, like two out of three of her older brothers. Only my grandpa Don Foutz was born in March, and he made up for it by having his firstborn in March, who then had a son born in May and a daughter born in March. If circumstantial gymnastics are your thing. Here’s a great pic of her as a kiddo in Dover.

Caleb’s Ancestral Birthday Buddies – May 30

30 — Birthday of Robert Ohio Weible

Born in 1892 in what was then Canal Dover, Ohio. If you think being born on Memorial Day is an occasion bedecked in red, white and blue, check out R.O.’s mom — Great-Great Grandma Esther Bliss (Goddard) Weible was born on July 4, 1852. R.O., whom she gave birth to just shy of her 40th, was her youngest child.

Great-great Grandmother Elizabeth (Duerr) Zeigler, 1903

30 — Birthday of Elizabeth (Duerr) Zeigler

My great-great grandparents Zeigler shared a birth month, though Elizabeth was some 18 years’ J.J. Zeigler’s junior. She was born in 1845, also in Baden-Wurttemberg, which is where her mother, Katharina Weinnman was born May 17, 1814.

Post-Birthday Buddies

Clockwise, from top left: Charles Henry Ley, his father Augustus, his grandfather Karl Gottleib Ley, his son Lester Herman Ley. About a year before Karl’s death. From Doris Ley Hill’s book, THE CARL FREDERICK LEY FAMILY.

1 –  Birthday of Charles Henry Ley

Born 1866 in Bakersville, Ohio, 110 years and 1 day before great-great grandson Colt Foutz. He followed father Augustus into the dry goods business, eventually traveling the country as a salesman for a Pittsburgh-based wholesale dry goods firm. After serving as city councilman and board of education member, he was elected to two straight terms as Tuscarawas County treasurer. He retired to private life in New Philadelphia, Ohio, where he lived until his death in November, 1925.

 

Grandparents Bob and Sue Ley were on hand to welcome me into the world, June 2, 1976, at Riverside Hospital in Columbus. Way to go, Mom!

2 — Birthday of Frederick Colt Foutz

Bicentennial baby. Born in Columbus, Ohio to Frederick Charles Foutz and Janet Louise Ley.

3 — Birthday of Rachel (Foutz) Coleman

Second great aunt. Born 105 years before Colt, in 1871, to great-great grandparents Jonathan and Rebecca (Caldwell) Foutz. We still don’t know what became of Rachel. A daughter, Blanche Escott, appears to have lived into her late 90s in Kent, Ohio. Maybe there are descendants out there — hint, hint — who can help shed light on Aunt Rachel’s life and too-early death.

Viola Mae (Palmer) Johnson

3 — Birthday of Viola Mae (Palmer) Johnson

Great grandmother, in 1889, to George and Amanda Jane (Cummings) Palmer. She was youngest of 10. The family farmed up the road a piece from the historic Foutz homestead in Harrison County. Though she would marry a Johnson, Charles, whose New Philadelphia family had come there from Guernsey County to mine coal.

5 — Birthday of Frederick Charles Foutz

Dad! Born several weeks’ premature in 1952 to Donald Dale and Erma Maxine (Johnson) Foutz.  He was their youngest, and was born 11 days after my Mom in the same Dover, Ohio hospital. Birthday week, indeed.