Category Archives: Coates-Hoskins

The 1918-1919 Flu Epidemic – Jesse James Bryan

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I’m currently researching and writing about how my families were impacted by epidemics, pandemics and other health crises, starting with the 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic. First was Woodye Webber, followed by Lizzie Strange. Now, Jesse James Bryan. I’m still collecting information on him, so I’m only telling part of Jesse’s story today.

I first encountered Jesse James Bryan in the pages of the George Washington Bryan and Sarah Stokes family Bible. He was an Independence Day baby!

Jesse James Bryan was born July 4th 1887.

Jesse is also found on an otherwise blank page of the bible.

Jesse James Bryan died Nov. 13-1918. Age 31 In France. Died with the Flu.

And there is a Joe Bryan with the same information on the Deaths page.

Joe Bryan died Nov. 13, 1918 with the flew in france.

My mother had a few photographs from her father’s family and had identified this photo as Joe Bryan, Aunt Rose’s son. It took me a while to figure out that Joe and Jesse James were the same person, but the bible confirmed it.

Jesse James Bryan

 

Jesse, or Joe, Bryan was born in Drakesville, Iowa, the second of fifteen children born to James Washington Bryan and Rosa Luella Hoskins. Joe was first cousin to my grandfather Thomas Hoskins. In fact, he was Grandpa’s first cousin on both sides of the family. Joe’s father, James W. Bryan was the brother of Grandpa’s mother Sarah Elizabeth Bryan. Joe’s mother, Rosa (Rose) Hoskins, was the sister of Grandpa’s father Thomas Franklin Hoskins. My mother remembered going with Grandpa to visit Aunt Rose many times, so I’m assuming the families got together fairly frequently when Joe and Grandpa were growing up, despite not living in the same town – especially with the double family connection.

Jesse (from here on I’ll use his given name) is listed in the 1900 US Federal Census with his extended family on a farm in Davis County, Iowa. In the home are Jesse’s parents, his grandmother Sarah Bryan Hoskins, his uncle John Bryan, and nine siblings who range in age from fourteen to four months. Jesse, twelve, and his older brother William, fourteen, are listed as farm laborers. Only sister Georgia, age nine, attends school. The growing family is documented again in the 1905 Iowa State Census in Davis County, Iowa.

I was confused when I saw that Jesse registered for the draft in Calumet, Iowa because it is so far from Drakesville. But it also says that he was employed by Ed Heinel in Paullina, Iowa, which is in the same county as Calumet.

That sent me looking for Jesse and his brother William, who are not listed in the 1910 Census with the rest of the family. I found them together on a farm in Humboldt County, Iowa.

William, 24, is listed as a farmer and head of household. Brother Jesse, 21, is listed as “working out” – earning income working on other farms. William didn’t register for the draft until September 1918 in Pocahontas County, Iowa and at that time listed his mailing address as a P.O. Box in Laurens, Pocahontas, Iowa. So it seems that the two older brothers had left the family farm before the 1910 census and were in northern Iowa by at least 1917.

Jesse registered for the draft on the first national draft registration day, June 5, 1917. The recently enacted Selective Service Act of 1917 required all men between the ages of 21 and 30 to register in order to raise an armed service sufficient for participation in the war. Jesse was not immediately called into service, so I’ll assume he just went on farming and working while waiting and listening to news of the war.

Jesse’s Army record of death provides the date of his enlistment – July 23, 1918, a little over a year after he registered for the draft.

I went to the internet looking for information about Camp Gordon this week and found a man in Atlanta whose passion is researching Camp Gordon, among other things. I saw an email address for him and decided to contact him with some questions I was trying to answer. He responded within minutes, offering his phone number so we could talk. With his help, I think we put together most of a timeline, some interesting context, and some suggestions to help my research.

From our phone conversation, I learned that the enlistment date of July 23 makes perfect sense because the large 82nd Airborne Division left Camp Gordon in late April, leaving plenty of room for new recruits. Jesse would have received his orders and boarded a train bound for Georgia, presumably arriving on July 23, 1918. Jesse got off the train at the “back door” to Camp Gordon in Chamblee, GA, walked across the railroad tracks, and waited for his turn to be processed. I wonder if this undated photo taken at Camp Gordon depicts what it was like when Jesse arrived. At its peak, Camp Gordon held 46,000 troops. It was a small city.

Iowa sent 6,440 recruits to Camp Gordon during the course of the war.

I’ll stop here for now with my link to the prompt photo. Jesse was able to go home on furlough before he went overseas. His youngest sister, Hattie, was just a little girl at the time. She didn’t really know her brother, since she was born in 1912 – after Jesse had moved away from home. Hattie told her daughter that she was in the yard swinging when he arrived and introduced himself to her. If she had met him before, she didn’t remember.

Maybe Jesse also enjoyed some time with old friends during his furlough.

For a good time visit other participants at Sepia Saturday.

Sepia Saturday – Science with Grandma

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Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, sign up to the link, try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and have fun.

I couldn’t think of anything to match the prompt photo and it is chemo week, so I needed something simple to do. Somewhere along the line, I remembered my grandmother Eveline Hoskins making charcoal crystal gardens with me a couple of times when I lived with her as a young girl – so that’s what I settled on. Doesn’t require a lot of research or brain power and I had the fun of making (with some stumbles) a couple of crystal gardens.

I couldn’t find much on the history of charcoal crystal gardens and only two vintage photos. There are apparently a few references in the 1700s, but charcoal crystal gardens gained popularity during the Depression and are sometimes referred to as Depression flowers. All of the items needed were common household chemicals usually found in one’s home.

Here are a couple of photos I found on the site with the recipe I used;

Most gardens were made in a glass pie plate or a bowl, not like the vase above. I chose glass pie plates and made two – one with charcoal briquettes (without lighter fluid!) and one with the leftovers from a wood burning fireplace that a friend supplied.

Since my grandparent’s home was heated by a coal stove, getting a few small pieces of coal was easy enough. Charcoal briquettes also work, and my little bit of research says you just need a porous base: broken flower pot, pieces of brick – even a sponge. I think my grandmother just sprinkled each item over the coal, but the recipes on the internet have you mix them together and pour over the coal.

The ingredients are basically equal amounts of salt, bluing, and water, and a lesser amount of ammonia. I used 6 Tablespoons of the first three and 1 Tablespoon of ammonia and divided between the two as I didn’t have enough bluing to make two batches – I tried to buy more, but the two stores I went to didn’t have it. Some recipes leave out the ammonia – especially if making with children – which I think slows the process but still works. 

Here is my first step, charcoal briquettes on the left, burnt wood on the right:

With the mixture poured over:

There is an excess of salt that doesn’t dissolve, so it was kind of a sludge that I ended up distributing as best I could.

One of my stumbles was that I never considered that I didn’t have a supply of food coloring in the pantry. If you are good with all white crystals that isn’t a problem, but I wanted a colorful garden like my Grandma and I made. All I could find at first was a little bit of blue food coloring, so I added what I had and went back to the cupboard to see what I could do. I found some paste food coloring that is used for cake decorating. With my weak hands, I couldn’t open a couple of them, but did get a reddish one and more blue, so I diluted the paste in water. When I went back to my garden, it had already started to grow!

Added the other food coloring and in an hour had this:

By bedtime, more crystals had grown and were overflowing the pie plate. It was also losing color as the new crystals had not taken on the food coloring. Guess I needed more. By this time, I found some red food coloring, so after taking this photo, I put a little red on and the crystal I poured it on just dissolved away. (It was replaced by morning, so no big deal, really.)
Bedtime:

This morning:

I also ended up with red food coloring on my hands and a little on my shirt, so beware. Also the bluing stains.

It was a fun little thing to do and think of my grandmother in the process.

Please visit the laboratories of other Sepia Saturday participants here.

 

Sepia Saturday – Love Notes

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Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, sign up to the link, try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and have fun.

I learned this song with slightly different lyrics, but I do enjoy this video. Here are the words I learned as a child:

A-tisket, a-tasket, 
A green and yellow basket. 
I wrote a letter to my love, 
And on the way I dropped it.

I dropped it, I dropped it, 
And, on the way I dropped it. 
A little boy picked it up, 
And put it in his pocket.

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

School started this past week and I am reminded of my eldest daughter’s first day of school. Trying my best to be a good mom, I put a little love note in my daughter’s lunch box. I don’t remember exactly what it said. Probably just, “I love you! Mom” – or something simple like that.

When she returned home, I asked about her day. Her reply, ” Well, I was okay until lunch. Then I saw your note and started to cry.”

Needless to say, I did not put little love notes in the lunch boxes of the next two kids I sent off to Kindergarten.

I kept a scrapbook when I was in college and there are a few love notes from my future husband.

He was big on giving me roses. He still is. Although he didn’t follow his first idea to mark each year together with that number of roses, he has more than made up for it! When I was diagnosed with my first cancer 6+ years ago, he started bringing home roses when he did the grocery shopping every weekend. Sometimes he switches up and gets a seasonal bouquet or now, in the spring, peonies are often available. Since they don’t grow in Texas and he knows my sentimental regard for them from my grandmother’s garden, he always gets them when he can. He has only missed a couple of weeks in six years.

When I had my stem cell transplant, I was not allowed to have fresh or potted plants in my room. I was in the hospital over Valentine’s Day and he found me a little plastic solar powered flower.

Unfortunately, our big grand dog wagged his big tail and broke it.

 

My great-uncle Fred Webber wrote a love poem to his future wife. I included it in a previous post, but I’ll just include the relevant information here.

“Carol Webber shared with us the following poem. She explained that, while they were both students at the University of Iowa, she and Fred  went on a picnic with friends. They fetched a bucket of water for the group. Later, Fred presented Carol with the following poem, above which he had mounted a picture of the two of them carrying the pail of water for the picnic.”

I also have a previous post that includes a letter my grandfather Thomas Hoskins wrote to his future wife, Eveline Coates. I consider it a love note because he made sure to let her know at the beginning of the letter that writing to her was first on his agenda when he arrived at his destination.

Here they are pictured on their 50th anniversary.

Okobogi Ia       July 3, 1922

Dear Eveline: I have just arrived at Okobogi, I have been here but about two hours, so you see I am prompt in writing. It is sure a beautiful place here. 
We are camping in Highland Park, I think I will like it fine. There is plenty of shade and as I am a fish you know, I will enjoy being in the Lake. I think I will go down and catch a big fish pretty soon but not until I get something to eat for I am nearly starving. I am sending you some pictures of Storm Lake we just left there this morning. There is going to be lots going on here tomorrow. We have just been trying to find out who was the cook of the bunch but nobody seems competent of the job.

Well if you want any fish you had better get in your order as we are going to make a shipment up there the last of this week. Well I will close for this time as the boys are naging me to get a bucket of water.

I will try and write more next time.

Write soon.
Thomas Hoskins

I received a letter from my grandmother Eveline in Feb. of 1983. She was 82; I was 29. She had fallen and broken her hip. She wrote::

“I refused to take my therapy this afternoon. Can’t see that it is helping very much. I feel a lot better sitting here and writing to you. Will just leave the rest up to God. 

Well Kathy, I still love you and I hope this letter doesn’t discourage your faith in me.”

I had been thinking for months that I should write a letter to my grandmother expressing my gratitude and love for her and this note prompted me to do just that. I won’t share the whole letter; it is too long and maybe my whole post here is a bit too personal. My parents separated and divorced when I was two and my mom and I moved in with my grandparents. We lived with them until my mom remarried when I was almost eight – some very formative years spent in the care of my grandmother while my mom went to work. I’ll share a few excerpts from my love note to my grandmother.

The return letter I received from my grandmother included this sentence:
“Your letter was so full of loving memories I am going to put it among my keepsakes as a reminder of you.”

My aunt was caregiver for my grandmother for several years. She found the letter in my grandmother’s purse and returned it to me.

I know there must be many little love notes around here, but these are the ones that first came to mind. I’ll close with this photo of my other grandmother’s nephew, who has a basket that would hold many, many love notes should he choose to pick them up.

Who knows what will fill the baskets of other Sepia Saturday participants. Go visit and find out – here.