Category Archives: Smith-Webber

Sepia Saturday: In Search of U

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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.
The prompt photo this week features a man repairing an umbrella. I am in short supply of photos that feature umbrellas. The only two I have, I shared in a Sepia Saturday post back in 2013: Umbrellas for Rain, Shine, and Romance

I used one of those umbrella photos again a few months later.

Me in front of Elsie Swick’s house on Brick Row, Ottumwa, Iowa

Although not a Sepia Saturday post, it has a Sepia Saturday connection. Co-founder Kat Mortensen helped me locate a book from childhood. The book includes an illustration much like my photo above. See:
A Rediscovered Book from Childhood

I learned the value of having an umbrella handy when I was a freshman in college. On one particular day, I found myself across campus from my next class without an umbrella during a downpour. I must have really needed to attend that day, because instead of heading back to the dorm, I walked as fast as I could to the class. I entered the old building with wooden floors where my German class was about to begin. I lowered my head and mustered my courage as I dripped and sloshed and squeaked, trying to slip quietly into a desk right next to a boy I had just started dating. Puddles formed at my feet as I dripped from head to toe. There was no look of recognition or sympathy from that boy! He didn’t recognize me! I took umbrage!

But I married him anyway.

According to dictionary.com:
J.K. Rowling chose the name Dolores Umbridge to reflect her character. Her first name comes from the Latin word for “sorrow” or “pain,” dolor. Umbridge is a play on umbrage (“offense” or “annoyance”), which comes from the Latin umbra (“shade” or “shadow”). The word usually appears in the phrase to take umbrage. 

I have dressed up as Dolores Umbridge a couple of times for the Halloween party and class we have for our adult ESL students. That’s a quill in my hand.

I dressed as Dolores Umbridge for our Halloween class again this year, but since it was on zoom, I only had to be in costume from the waist up and found an image of her office that I could use as a background.

I looked at my family tree to see if there is someone I could feature who has a name that begins with U. Unknown is a fairly popular name in my tree.

U. M., Ulysses, and Uriah are essentially unknown to me as well due to their distance on the family tree.

One of my family lines is STRANGE, which means unusual. I get very frustrated when I search old newspapers for my kin. STRANGE may be an unusual surname, but it is a very popular word! Here is my 2nd great-grandfather, John Sylvester Strange

An old meaning of the word umbrage is shade or shadow, especially as cast by trees. There is a family story about one of our Stranges who met his demise in the umbrage of a beech tree. My grand aunt, Woodye Webber, was the family genealogist and wrote two family histories. She recorded the story in Ancestors – Kings? Horsetheives? Or What?

Before going on, a story written during the depression by WPA writers is one we heard many times from Mother. This is about one of Grandfather Strange’s  uncles.
The village of Strange Creek was so-named because of the young survivor who was stranded from his companions in the year 1795. No amount of searching for either the party or William was successful. Years later, on the bank of the creek William Strange was found – his bones beneath a beech tree, his rifle leaning against it with the shot pouch dangling from the ramrod. Carved in the tree was the following message:

Strange is my name and I’m on strange ground
And strange it is I can’t be found.

Since she mentioned the WPA, I went in search of the story. By googling the entire message carved into the tree, I found it referenced in a couple of modern newspaper stories about name places with unusual backstories. Besides a mention of the story in a couple of other books, I found the passage contained in The WPA Guide to West Virginia: The Mountain State. It reads as follows on page 406:

STRANGE CREEK, 21.3 m. (807 alt., 60 pop.), has its center across the Elk River at the mouth of a stream of the same name. Originally called Turkey Run, the creek was named for William Strange who wandered from a surveying party near the headwaters of the Elk in 1795; his companions searched for him in vain. Years later, on the bank of Turkey Run, 40 miles from the spot where he was last seen, his bones were found beneath a great beech tree, against which leaned his rifle, the shot pouch dangling from the ramrod. Carved in the bark was this couplet:
Strange is my name and I’m on strange ground
And strange it is I can’t be found.

Pretty much what Aunt Woodye wrote… although I believe she meant to type surveyor instead of survivor.

Another source, found on the West Virginia Explorer website, Old Legend of Strange Creek Might Never Be Confirmed, provides more details to the legend, as well as the author’s attempt to authenticate it and find the location where William is said to have met his lonely fate. This article includes the story as told by a West Virginia historian named Charles Carpenter. Carpenter states that the first printed record of the story appears in the 1876 book History of Kanawha County, written by George Atkinson, who later became governor of West Virginia. Atkinson devoted a full two and a half pages to the story of William Strange and Strange Creek. His description of William is rather unflattering: “Mr Strange was a very indifferent woodsman, and to him was assigned the duty of taking the pack-horse from one camping place to another.” Apparently William wasn’t very good at following directions and got lost.

I’m not exactly sure where this William Strange should be included in my tree. Woodye said in the quote above that William was one of her grandfather’s uncles, but the 1795 date would put him another generation back. In a later family history, Woodye writes a similar story, but names the Strange as Charles. All of the books and articles I found online reference a William. It is all so unclear! Possibly unknowable. Family lore connects him to us and Strange is not the most common surname, so l hope to figure out our real relationship some day.

The story of William Strange is very unfortunate. For some reason, I keep thinking of a song I learned as a child in Girl Scouts:  Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree. It is a much happier tale. Here are some unlikely folks singing along:

Sometimes I begin a Sepia Saturday post unsure of what to write and unaware of where my thoughts and searches may take me. Undoubtably, this is one of those posts.

Please understand that the unique pleasure of Sepia Saturday is visiting all of the participants. U can do that here: Sepia Saturday.

1918-1919 Flu Epidemic: Lydia Elizabeth Strange

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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.

Illness can barrel through a family or a community with the force of a train. Sometimes there are parallel stories, like the tracks that a train rolls along.

I’m continuing to look at how epidemics, pandemics and public health crises have impacted my families. Last year, I wrote a series on the death of my mother’s brother, who died as the result of the measles in 1930. That series begins here: An Uncle I Never Knew.

Now I’m focussing on the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. I began with Woodrow Wilson (Woodye) Webber in my last post. Woodye was the daughter of Myron David Webber and Dorinda Rebecca Strange. As I was looking through old newspapers for information about the 1918-1919 flu epidemic in Lincoln County, Kansas, where the Strange family lived for many years, I came across this.

I didn’t know who Lizzie Strange was, but knew she must have been one of ours and when I reached out to cousins by email, I was assured that all of the Lincoln County Stranges are our kin.

The Strange family was very large and included step-siblings and half-siblings, siblings who cared for siblings after the death of parents, and siblings who had lots of children. I have a hard time keeping them straight!

Here is what I have pieced together about Lydia Elizabeth (Lizzie) Strange Hammond.

Lizzie Strange was the daughter of George Washington Strange and Nancy Matilda Henderson. The youngest child born to George and Nancy, she is front and center of the photo above. Her mother had two children from a previous marriage – Martha (Mattie) and William Tannehill. George and Nancy had three boys in addition to Lizzie – Benjamin, Harry, and Everett.

Lizzie was born 7 August 1882 in Lincoln, Kansas. Her father George was a half-sibling to Dorinda Rebecca Strange (Woodye’s mother). There was an almost twenty year age difference between half-siblings George and Dorinda, but Dorinda was only about six years older than George’s daughter Lizzie, her niece. Or would that be half-niece? Below is a photo of Dorinda, on the left, and Lizzie on the right.

Dorinda Rebecca Strange (L) and Lydia Elizabeth (Lizzie) Strange (R)

According to Strange genealogist John H. Mayer in his book Strange of Eastern America, Lizzie first married William McCormick, by whom she had a boy who died young. The couple divorced.

Francis Marion Strange (1880-1951), in his book of memories Anecdotes From My Life, provides a little more information while telling of a prank he played on his Uncle George:
In the fall or early winter of 1898, I had been teaching my first school in the Ingalls district in northwest Lincoln County. It was some 20 miles up there and I rode my horse to and from there every week when the weather was favorable. So one Friday night I finished up my school work and the cleaning up of the house, and started home. I arrived to find there was a real surprise for me. My cousin, Lizzie Strange, had just recently married. Perhaps the real surprise came since I didn’t know she was thinking of getting married, since she wasn’t quite sixteen.

Lizzie married veterinarian Marion J. Hammond of Luray, Kansas on 06 December 1916 and they made their home in Luray, a town a little over thirty miles west of Lincoln.

By this time, Dorinda and her large family were living in Iowa and Woodye was born seven months after Lizzie’s marriage to Marion Hammond.

The only wedding announcement I found was this in the Luray newspaper.

The Luray Herald (Luray, KS) 11 Jan 1917

Lizzie seems to have involved herself in the life of her new community, hosting the M. E. (Methodist-Episcopal?) Aid society a few months after settling in Luray.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 30 Aug 1917

I assume the ladies were singing rather than tinging.

The couple moved into a new home around New Year’s Day 1918.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 3 Jan 1918

The local newspaper kept everyone informed of the comings and goings of the Hammonds – their visits to family out of town and visits from family to their home.

In March, Lizzie attended the funeral of her aunt in Lincoln. The newspaper notice does not report the name of the aunt, but that would have been Rev. Sarah Bird Strange, wife of Rev. Thomas Madison Strange. Sarah died March 8, 1918. Her obituary does not list a cause of death, so I have no idea if her death was related to influenza.

The Luray Herald (Luray Ks) 14 March 1918

When I saw that Lizzie and Marion attended the funeral of Lizzie’s sister-in-law, Rachel Strange, wife of her brother Everett, in September, I wondered if she had died of influenza.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 12 Sep 1918

But John Mayer wrote in his book, Strange of Eastern America, that Rachel died by suicide.

Wedding portrait, Everett and Rachel Strange

Rachel and Everett had three sons, James Sibley, Raymond Everett, and Norwood Norton. Norwood was only two when his mother died.

Sons of Everett and Rachel Strange

Shortly after the funeral notice in the Luray newspaper, there was a notice that Everett had brought his son Raymond to live with his sister Lizzie. I don’t know where the other boys went, but perhaps they also went to live with relatives.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 19 Sep 1918

Less than a month after Everett left his son with Lizzie and Marion, came the news that Lizzie was ill with influenza in Junction City. Her husband had family in Junction City, so it is unclear if she became ill while visiting, or if her husband took her to the larger town for medical treatment.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 14 Nov 1918

A week later, the newspaper reported that Lizzie had died.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 21 Nov 1918

Lizzie and Marion were about six weeks shy of celebrating their second wedding anniversary.

This obituary is the first time I had heard of the Royal Neighbors. According to Wikipedia “the early members of the Society were ahead of their time. In addition to providing life insurance for women, they stood firmly behind the women’s suffrage movement. Royal Neighbors was also one of the first fraternal societies to insure children and recognize mortality studies establishing the fact that women live longer than men, and to reflect that difference in life insurance premiums…. They intended to be that helpful neighbor, combining the Biblical “neighbor” with the word “royal” that signified their belief in the nobility of the work they would do.”

Fairfield Journal, Fairfield, IA Dec. 17, 1918

Nearly everyone in the eleven-member family of Lizzie’s Aunt Dorinda was reported to be ill less than a month after Lizzie’s death.

From the brief research I did this week, I found no evidence that Lizzie’s husband Marion remarried. His widowed sister and her children had moved to Kansas before Lizzie’s death. The 1920 census shows his nephew Frank Steele living with him and, for a time Marion, and his sister and her children lived together. Marion later had a small farm where he lived alone in Clay County, Kansas. He died in California in 1953.

As for Everett Strange and his sons, they were reunited. Everett remarried and census records show the boys living with their father and step-mother and several half-siblings.

Rev. Thomas Madison Strange, husband of Rev. Sarah Bird Strange and brother of George Washington Strange and half-brother of Dorinda Rebecca Strange, died in October of 1919. His obituary lists the cause of death as uremia, a condition caused by kidney damage. This is of interest to me because of the death of my mother’s brother after having the measles. His death was secondary to measles, the cause of death being nephritis. I am no doctor and have no medical knowledge at all, but my little look into the definitions of both seem to have some possible overlap and made me wonder if T. M. Strange had a chronic kidney condition or if, like my uncle, had suffered kidney damage from a viral infection that led to his death. Always speculating… Can’t help it.

That’s all for my lengthy contribution to Sepia Saturday. Ride the rails to the next stop on the line, where other’s have surely written shorter and more uplifting tales at Sepia Saturday.

The 1918-1919 Flu Epidemic – Woodye Webber

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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 really can’t think of a connection to the prompt photo and my post today other than several suits and ties. I’ve been wanting to research and write about the epidemics, pandemics, and other public health crises that have impacted my families, so I’m starting those posts today. I do have old photos, so there’s that.

First up, the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. My family research hasn’t been particularly fruitful, but I’ll go with what I have. And I’ll add that I’ve fallen into the rabbit hole of old newspapers to find information and context. If you don’t want to read all of them, feel free to scroll on by!

My Strange-Webber family has one story that has been passed down – about Woodye (Woodrow Wilson) Webber.

This picture of the M. D. Webber and Dorinda Strange Webber family was taken in 1919. Woodye is the youngest child, seen here in her mother’s arms. My grandmother was Abbie, the oldest girl in the family.

I don’t know the occasion that prompted this photo. The girls may all be be dressed in white and most of the boys are in suits and ties. Church? Easter? The short sleeves the girls are wearing indicate a warm time of year, so maybe this was taken in late spring or summer. At the time this photo was taken, the family lived in Fairfield, Iowa. Woodye was born May 2, 1917, in Fairfield.

Woodye’s children shared what they heard and remember about their mother’s bout with the flu.

Wilda – The story of Mother and the epidemic as I recall hearing it is that mother was very sick for quite some time (several weeks, I think), and that Aaron went into the bedroom periodically to try to entertain her. One day he came out of the bedroom with tears in his eyes. Zam asked, “What’s the matter, Aaron?” He replied, “The baby smiled.” Her smile had been met by tears of joy, and it marked her turn around. She had started talking and was becoming more mobile, but had to relearn everything after her recuperation.

Aaron, the second oldest boy in the family was the next in age after my grandmother. Zam is the name Woodye’s children called their grandmother, Woodye’s mother.

A newspaper clipping dated 17 Dec 1918 confirms the approximate time of Woodye’s illness.

Fairfield Journal, Fairfield, IA Dec. 17, 1918

The curious thing about this little notice in the newspaper is the family member count – eight of nine family members. If you can count, you can see that there are eleven members in this family – two parents and their nine offspring. So where did those numbers come from?

Norman in National Guard Uniform 1918

My best guess is that the oldest son, Norman, was not counted. He served with the Iowa National Guard beginning October 7, 1918.  His military service never took him out of Fairfield. I don’t know if he stayed at the armory or post for the duration of his service, but maybe he did and was not counted. It looks like Norman is wearing his uniform in the family picture above. Eleven minus one.

The next obvious possibility is that my grandmother had moved out of the house. The 1920 Census shows her living in the family home, so either Abbie was staying somewhere else at the time of the newspaper story or the reporter just didn’t get the numbers straight.

Whatever the case, there were a lot of sick people in that house. All at the same time. Since only the story of Woodye has been passed down, perhaps she was the most ill and, being the baby of the family (not yet two years old), her illness was most significant to family lore. We are left wondering if everyone eventually became ill, how they managed with so many sick at once, and how influenza affected others in the family.

The Fairfield newspaper began to report on local cases of the flu in October, along with information about avoiding infection and patient quarantine.

The following day, public meetings were banned due to twelve cases of influenza, plus diphtheria, scarlet fever, and a possible case of infantile paralysis. This order included schools, theaters, churches and other public buildings, but the theater owner had already ordered films and apparently had permission to show them.

The ban on gatherings was reported to be working and hopes were high that the ban would be lifted. Unfortunately, the epidemic was not as well controlled in other parts of the state and local officials could not lift the prohibitions. (Click to enlarge.)

Halloween was canceled for the Webber kids, as well as all the kids in town.

At some point schools, and presumably churches and other meeting places reopened, but I missed the notices of that. A clipping from November 15th reported that two teachers had contracted the virus and said that the rumor that schools would close was unfounded. The Red Cross needed volunteers to make gauze masks. And Parsons College, in the city, reported thirty-three cases and was under quarantine in November.

Ten days before the notice about the Webber family having influenza, the paper had several notices pertaining to the epidemic. Gatherings of more than twelve people were banned, which resulted in the closing of many businesses as well as churches and schools.

In addition to the influenza epidemic, there was a war going on with calls to service, mask-making, and food rationing, among other things. At the end of the clipping below about church services is a note about sugar – and how the government will trust every one to be on their honor not to use sugar extravagantly. Also – don’t eat a fourth meal.

Schools were closed again beginning December 11 and to continue through December 30. In addition, children under the age of eighteen were not to gather in the streets or in the homes of friends.

Failure to comply with quarantine was an indictable offense.

This all sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Closings. Openings. Closings. Re-openings. Quarantine. Masks. Outbreaks on college campuses. Follow the rules!

A local newspaper published this piece in the face of difficult times.

I came up with a few ideas about what may have prompted this family photo.


* Easter, April 20, 1919 – as suggested earlier
* A celebration of Woodye’s recovery
* Woodye’s 2nd birthday on May 2, 1919. If you look closely, you can see that Woodye is holding a doll in the photo and seems to be showing it to the camera. A birthday gift?
* Winning 1st prize at church on Family Night for having the largest family, March 1919

I wonder what happened to that Bible?

The story of Woodye and the flu doesn’t end with her recovery as a toddler.

Wilda – Part of the irony of Mother’s life is the role the flu played. When flu shots were first available to the public in the 1940s, Mother had one – and got very sick again. And then in her later life, she had a very serious bout with the flu, after which she was pretty-much wheelchair-bound for her remaining lifetime. It seems as though the Spanish flu early in her life and the seasonal flu late in her life are almost bookends to her lifestory – though, of course, not the most important elements of it.

Dorinda – Mother spent her life being afraid of flu shots, because she had a horrible bout with it after her first flu shot, so she didn’t trust them.  When she was in Healthwin nursing home they wanted to give her a flu shot each year and she always hesitated.  I reminded her that her first shot was a live virus and that they were now giving shots that were not live viruses.  Makes a big difference.

Becky – First, when she was still in Iowa City (before moving to South Bend) I remember her saying she was getting two half doses of the flu because she felt a full dose caused her to get sick. 

Alice – I remember the 2 half doses for several years before moving to South Bend. What I remember about mom going into the nursing home is she had had a real bad case of the flu and was in the hospital and could no longer walk and that is when she went into Helthwin.

Needless to say, our family is grateful for the life of Woodye Webber. And please, don’t take this as an anti-vaccine story! Get vaccinated! And let’s all hope for a safe and effective vaccination for COVID-19.

I’ll end with a cute photo of Woodye on her first date with future husband Orville Kessler.

Oh! There it is! A man and a woman standing together. My link to the prompt photo.

To see how others have interpreted the theme this week, visit Sepia Saturday.