Five Enduring Foutz Family Mysteries

Great-Great Grandfather Jonathan Foutz would probably agree with Dory — looking for answers to genealogy questions? Just keep sleuthing!

Genealogy Never Rests

Just keep sleuthing, just keep sleuthing….

Dory from Finding Nemo (and her own eponymous sequel) was really a genealogist at heart. The motto that kept her moving — swimming — kept leading her to families, no matter the leagues between them. First, Nemo’s, then happily, her own.

Aside from occasional bursts of full-contact hereditary rummaging, my genealogical quest has been more of an occasional thing. Some early-a.m. flipping through old newspapers here, some peeks at the burgeoning pile of electronic detritus on Ancestry.com there. Day job, Dad duties, mindless TV — all conspire to slow my family-sleuthing from mad scramble to meandering marathon.

And that’s OK. This blog is a record of where we’ve been before, and an open lane to the depths we’ve yet to discover. And often, the way to latch on to new currents is to back-paddle to places we last left off. Dive around. Pick up the tidal pull again.

What do we do? We sleuth….

Questions to Keep Sleuthing By

My goal for this space the next six months is to share, at least once a week, some tidbit or tale that I’ve kept under glass the last few years, or lately untangled from the historical net. These discoveries spark conversations, which in turn spark connections — people with answers, and questions of their own. Keep ’em coming.

For now, here are five of the biggest, most-enduring mysteries I’d like one day to solve, bringing further clarity to the muddy waters of Foutz, Ley, Weible, Morgan, Fisher, Johnson, Palmer, Zeigler origins.

1. Where did Michael Pfouts come from?

Yeah, we think we know. Württemberg. Along the lower Neckar River region in Germany. Where Foutzes of old farmed, fought, made little Foutzes.

So says John Scott Davenport’s Foutz Newsletter of the 1980s: Michael Pfoutz emigrated to America in 1787, settled in Washington County, Maryland, and by 1810 or so was on his way to Harrison County, Ohio, where multiple records pretty definitively trace the Pfouts-Fouts-Foutz story through the succeeding two centuries.

But: Where exactly did Michael come from in Germany? Why did he cross the ocean, at 18? Did anyone come with him? Where else did those possible brothers and sisters, and father and mother, end up?

As the Davenport newsletters grow yellowed, and the originators of that work pass away, we’ve got to look for new answers, new connections. One I may have found, that I’ll reveal in a post soon (to echo Star Wars’ original trilogy): “a sister(rrrrrrrrr)?”

2. What happened to Rachel Foutz?

As traced in the years since an original summation of Foutz mysteries, we now know what became of every brother and sister of my great-grandfather, Vance Foutz, and even have a pretty good bead on their descendants, save for one sister, Rachel (Foutz) Coleman.

Rachel was one of three older sisters to my great-grandfather. We know what became of Lila and Ida. And it’s through Ida’s son Sherman’s diary — and the useful transcribing of distant cousin Dawn James — that we gain a little color around the facts we know, and a window on life in Dover, Ohio after Rachel and family followed younger brothers Charles, Vance and Mom Rebecca Foutz there in the first decade of the 1900s:

• Born June 3, 1871 to Jonathan and Rebecca Foutz,in Harrison County, Ohio
• In 1891, at age 20, Rachel married a war vet, William Coleman, more than 20 years her senior, and became stepmom to at least one living son, Berttie
• They had at least four kids — Carl, who died of tuberculosis at my great-grandfather’s house in 1915 (same spring as Rebecca Foutz and her oldest son, Sherman); Blanche, Frank and Bessie.
• Bessie, born in 1906 in Dover, disappears, along with mother Rachel, from the record. No other census, death or burial records have been found.

We later find William living in a veterans’ home in Canton, Ohio. And Frank lives until 1959 in Canton (he has a family I have not further explored – could be connections there). Meanwhile, sister Blanche lives until the ripe old age of 97, passing away in 1994 in Kent, Ohio. A few years back, I spoke to a family who knew her well, and shared photos. Story to come.

But what became of Rachel? There’s a mystery even more vexing for all we’ve assembled about our now-distant Foutz relatives.

Kaiserslautern Coat of Arms. The Leys emigrated there from The Netherlands sometime in the 1600s.

3. What can we learn of the Netherlands Leys?

According to A Short History of the Ley Family, a pamphlet passed down from our Port Washington, Ohio Ley ancestors, the Ley family originated in the Netherlands and came to Kaiserslautern in Germany, probably in the late 1600s.

We can trace the family back through my fourth-great-grandfather, Karl Ley, coming to America in 1833 and settling first in Shanesville, Ohio, and later, Port Washington, making his career as a saddler. And then further back through his father, Frederick Charles Ley, a minister at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Pfalz, Bavaria; and then through his father, John Frederick Ley, also pastor at that parish (succeeding, in fact, his father-in-law, who succeeded his own father).

Neat trick, and probably an amazing place to visit someday for all that family mojo.

But we don’t know much about Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Ley — not his name, date of birth, city of residence, or death — save that he had a large, rural estate and was mayor, for a time, of his unknown city. And that his dad, Great Ley x 8, was first to move from the Netherlands and settle in Kaiserslautern, where he set up a cloth “manufactory.”

What can we learn from detailed German records, which seem to have been maintained through the tenuous political jigsaw puzzle of those centuries, and through war, etc., but weren’t so far recorded by our relatives?

Who were Thomas Johnson’s parents?

We’ve got names, known to my grandma, Erma (Johnson) Foutz, and her sisters. Just not much else. Maybe because his name was so common?

George Johnson was probably born in England, so says family legend, and he married a, well, Mary, and they settled in Guernsey County, Ohio. That’s the sum total of our knowledge about fourth-great-grandfather Johnson.

Admittedly, it doesn’t get too much clearer with Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Thomas, who died at 42 in the Civil War. Though just where in Mississippi, and of what, is a matter of some debate. (Possibly also due to his fairly common name?)

We hear he was a mule skinner in the army — something to do with nabbing available meat from local farms the army passed through and butchering it for the fighting boys. But we don’t even know that much about the wife he left behind, Nancy Valentine, back home in Guernsey, at first, and then, by 1910 in Jackson, Ohio. There’s a tid bit about her maybe not getting his pension — why? We also don’t know her death.

This is odd, because we know all their descendants, and their paths through Harrison and Tuscarawas counties, Ohio. Time to start sleuthing….

5. Where, in Wales, were the Morgans?

Also in the common name department are my second-great-grandparents, Thomas and Jannett (Rees) Morgan. We know their lives after they emigrated from Wales quite well — from their marriage in Philadelphia in 1872, to their settling in western Pennsylvania, and eventually, in Carnegie, where Thomas ran the Hotel Morgan before he died, in 1897.

What is a continued vexation — a problem not cleared up by the terse obituaries of the 19th century — is just who their parents were. When Thomas first came over; when Janet did. What happened to their sisters and brothers (if they had any) and parents. Even how “Reese/Rhys/Rees” is spelled.

We have theories about where they were from in Wales, and family stories of Jannett and her children going back to visit. We’ve gained their photos, and a hunch about Jannett’s Dad’s name, Daniel.

Everything else? Time to get sleuthing.

So, This is 40

The dates on my great-grandfather R.O. Weible’s Elks leader portrait probably peg his age accurately — 39 in 1931, right on the cusp of 40.

Family Men at 40: A Rogue’s Gallery

I’ll say this for investing a little time in genealogy as a hobby: the presents you can create for family sure beat the silk off gifting another tie or purse.

As much as genealogy plays into my passions for research and writing, my bouts of document diving and image archiving have generated a few keepsake Christmas and birthday and anniversary and just-because gifts commemorating loved ones lost and living.

What fun would it be, after all, not to share?

Blogging about my Grandpa Foutz’s special 1931 football season led first to a Christmas book collecting both his source scrapbook and my blogs about his exploits, and later to a project to create an authentic reproduction of his 1931 jersey, as well as his actual game-worn uniform.

Before that, I’d taken a first crack at a frame-worthy family tree poster for my parents’ 35th anniversary. Then, a few years ago for my own 10th anniversary, I’d included my wife’s side back to the great-greats in an even bigger piece that hangs in our dining room at home — a record I’ve got to update, anyway, since we added a third little grape to our own family vine, oh, three years or so ago.

I’ve gladly cut my cousins into a trove of photos and newspaper clips I’ve stockpiled for their own efforts at milestone-marking.

And speaking of milestones, some of the less-sleuthworthy but more generically blogworthy posts in this space have focused on monthly birthdays and anniversaries of our ancestors.

This blog site and the notion of Whispering Across the Campfire, of course, is a means of sharing, too — releasing the newfound mysteries and facts so we can revel at them together, or send a beacon to relatives yet unknown in order to make sense of a particularly gnarly nugget.

You can bet I get a lot out of that, too.

So genealogical generosity, evidence indicates, is mostly a zero-sum game. You get what you give.

Well, today, I found my thoughts turning to… myself. Specifically, at about 12:12 a.m., the clock having ticked to a milestone of my own. I found myself, newly 40, pondering… a variety of sleep-evading thoughts, mostly on family. For instance:

• my inlaws, in their 60s; when we’d first met, sharing beers at a festival tent in Columbus, Ohio, they were barely 50. Is it possible so much time has racked up, and so quickly?
• my youngest son, turned 3 just 3 days before; when I’m 50 he’ll be 13, still house-bound to us for another 5 years, but also likely to leap in an eyeblink.
• my oldest, almost 10, will be out of the house by then; his brother, Ben, on the verge of leaving.
• my own parents, at 40, contending with a 16-year-old me. Seems so recent, but actually….
• the things I’d hoped for, some lost, some attained — were they me? Another me? Someone else?
• and the memories which still seem close enough to step into; events and people at 12 and 20 and 9 and 30, how long do we hold them, and for what end?

All right. So at least I’m old enough to know the antidote — a trusty book, kept bedside. Reshuffling my thoughts in the rhythm of narrative. Finding rest.

Mostly, in that interval, I thought of family. And the lessons we grope at — however profound, however fleeting — of the things they’d done, and the ways they’d lived. What it says about us, about all this: there is always someone who came before, always stories to be written after.

Ahem. Well.

OK, so I eventually found sleep. And woke up today with a little nugget of an idea for a milestone blog of sorts. Not about me, really. But a visual reminder of some of the ragged thoughts bumping around in my middle-aged brain.

A few years ago, when my parents turned 60, I put together a little slideshow compiling photos and facts of their own parents and grandparents and great-grandparents: what they looked like and the way they lived in the years they turned 60. A little parallel time capsule, of sorts.

So today I find myself thinking about the men in my family. A few of whom I’m told I resemble. (That’s generous, in some instances, plainly tragic in others. But ah well. Our faces are just the facades we present to the outside.) Without over-narrating, then (having done that already), a slideshow. Of Foutzes and Leys and Weibles, etc., at or around when they turned 40.

Of course, 40 is relative. (Accidental pun, hahaha. Relative.) What would it mean, without a little juxtaposition? So, I’ve thrown that in, too.

Prost! Skol! Cheers!

So this is 40? A Slideshow

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Zula Ley: Little-Known Fact #4

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

Tragic Death Tied to Flu Epidemic

When I started this blog, it was to share what’s most interesting to me about genealogy — the way the lives and personalities of our ancestors come to life in the stories we uncover.

At times those stories are tragic. Perhaps none more so than the story of my great-grandmother, Zula (Fisher) Ley.

Posts in the last weeks have shared snippets of her young life — acclaim for her acting in a senior play, notching a finalist finish in a national beauty contest, sneaking off to Wellsburg, W. Va. to marry Great-Grandpa Earl Ley.

These and other portraits show Zula as vital, intelligent, beautiful.

But her life is defined for her descendants by its tragic end, subject of the second post ever in this blog. It was front-page news in neighboring Dover: how the young wife, 24, of a prominent dentist passed away of influenza and pneumonia late on a Sunday night at home in New Philadelphia, Ohio.

An account in the hometown Daily Times, however, also ties Zula’s death to a sudden epidemic that winter.

The Feb. 2, 1920 edition, front page, broadcasts in bold headlines: FLU EPIDEMIC CLAIMS THREE; RED CROSS TAKES UP BATTLE. Whole Families are Reported Ill. Relief is Sought. Three Persons Die Over Weekend.

While influenza is fast enveloping New Philadelphia in a grip that claimed three fatalities Sunday and Monday the Red Cross is preparing to combat the epidemic with nurses.

Mayor E. N. Fair Monday as chairman of the influenza committee of the Red Cross was seeking a nurse for a family where help could not be obtained to take care of the ill.

Whole families are ill with the epidemic, and many patients were reported on the verge of death, Monday.

Young Wife Dies

Mrs. Mary Zula Ley, 24, wife of Dr. Robert E. Ley, Dover dentist, succumbed to influenza-pneumonia at 11:30 p.m. Sunday following ten days’ illness.

The death of Mrs Ley which occurred at the residence on West High street, caused widespread sorrow.

The husband and one son, Robert Earl, aged 16 months, survive.

…

Years later, with more information known about our family history, it is believed the hereditary presence of Factor V Leiden, which causes abnormal clotting of the blood, particularly in veins, may have contributed to Zula’s death.

Reported in neither paper was the stillborn death of her infant daughter, also named Mary on a separate death certificate.

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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.

 

 

Zula Ley: Little-Known Fact #1

Great-Grandmother Zula Fisher Ley’s 1913 high school senior class photo and bio from the Clover, New Philadelphia, Ohio.

Zula Fisher Lauded in Theater Role

Hey, hey, and happy 2016 to family and familiars.

Two things that keep me returning to genealogy — no matter the gaps between hits on the blog odometer — are the stories (confirming old ones, uncovering new ones) and the mysteries (solving an old one, unearthing a new one).

This week, by virtue of some spurts of research spawned by arctic temps here in the western outpost of Foutz- and Leydom, I’ve got some new tidbits to share.

Today we visit with a teenage Great-Grandmother Zula Lucrece (Fisher) Ley, circa 1913.

As a New Philadelphia, Ohio, high school senior, Zula was noted in her yearbook entry for her participation in basketball and the senior play. But a (remarkably) lengthy write-up in the Daily Times shared some interesting details of her role.

Subbed after Classmate’s Sister’s Death

“Real stars uncovered in playlet,” the headline reports, and the article goes on for a full, front-page column, then jumps to more on page 5.

Even my indulgent newspaper editors probably would have red-penned me to death were I to have pulled that almost a hundred years later.

We learn more about Zula’s role about 2/3 of the way down. From the Saturday, May 24, 1913 edition:

Miss Zula Fisher deserved much credit. Miss Fisher portrayed the part of Miss Mayne Hensel, leading lady in the junior class play. The part was to have been taken by Miss Martha Swearingen, but on account of the death of Miss Swearingen’s sister she was unable to take part. Miss Fisher was notified only Friday morning that she was to take the part and had only one day to prepare it. If one had not known, it could never had been told as she spoke her lines and acted as though she had been practicing a month.

A nice little nugget, in a story of otherwise merely contemporary value, that shines a little light on Zula’s budding character.

No surprise, then, that she grew into a local teacher well-known and beloved by pupils over the following years. And also sheds light on another surprising tid bit I’ll share Tuesday.

Till then….

Fisher family portrait, circa 1910. Front: Addie May & John W. Kids: Byron, Zula, Clyde, Alverna, Oscar.