Tag Archives: Thomas Hoskins

Sepia Saturday – Pictured Above

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Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs.

The Sepia Saturday theme image this week features a group of seven men who look rather comfortable on what I view as a terrifyingly high and precarious perch in Yosemite National Park in California. I would never ever ever ever do this. Also I wonder where the photographer was. In another high and precarious place?

The image reminded me of a couple of family photos. Up first is my (maternal) grandfather, Tom Hoskins on the left, my grandmother Eveline Coates on the right, and Eveline’s sister Blanche at the bottom of the triangle. They are sitting on a railroad trestle that looks to be a little high off the ground – maybe 12 feet or so? Since my grandmother wrote her name on the back using her maiden name, I’ll assume it was taken before their marriage in 1923. They all lived in the small coal mining community of Mystic, Iowa.

Like the prompt image, this photo appears to be taken from a location at about the same height as the people pictured. Where might the photographer have been?

Here’s a closer look. I think the sisters are wearing matching dresses. Would they have gone on a double date in matching dresses? Or was this taken on the day of some special occasion? My grandmother looks a little stiff up there. Maybe this wasn’t her idea of a good time. Her future husband has his hand on her knee – perhaps to reassure her?

I’m a bit baffled that they are sitting on a dirty railroad trestle in their fancy dresses.

This second image is my grandfather on the left and his friend Miles Bankson. They look like they are dressed in their Sunday best again. This perch doesn’t exactly look like a railroad trestle, although it seems there might be a track behind them. My first thought is that this was taken at one of the coal mines.

Everyone pictured here became family. Sisters Eveline and Blanche married Tom and Miles.

I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out where these were taken with not much success. I’ll leave that to another day.

Sepia Saturday bloggers will surely take you to great heights today. Pay them a visit!

Who Were the Immigrant Ancestors? # 5 George Westfall and ???

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I’m on a mission to identify the immigrant ancestors in my family and my husband’s family.

These are the questions I’m asking:
* Who were our ancestors who first immigrated to the United States?
* How many of them have I already identified?
* Did the family follow a pattern of family reunification (what is being described negatively as chain migration) with one person or family arriving, getting settled, and sponsoring a family member or family unit?
* Can I determine (or make a good guess) about why they left their native country?
* How might our ancestors have fared if a merit-based policy had been in place at the time?

It was easy – so easy! – to identify the immigrant ancestors in my Grandmother Eveline’s line. Her parents! Joseph Coates. Mary Ann Harris. Mary Ann’s parents William Harris and Celia Jenkins. Easy peasy.

Turning to the line of Eveline’s husband, my grandfather Thomas Hoskins – I can only identify one: George Westfall (or Westall), my 4th great-grandfather.

“History of Perry County, Ohio” written in 1838, includes a biographical sketch of John W. Westfall, grandson of George.
” … George Westall, was born in London, England, and after a 42 days voyage, full of peril, landed in Rockingham county, Virginia, in time to serve in the Continental army as a drummer.”

Sometimes you have to take these county history bios with a grain of salt, but I tend to believe the naming of a grandparent as an immigrant. I looked some yesterday for a record of George serving as a drummer in the Continental army, but haven’t come up with anything to verify that yet.

It was finding transcribed letters online between George’s daughter, Hester Jane Westfall (my 3rd great-grandmother) and her sons that gave me the genealogy bug years ago. Thank you, Hester Jane and whoever kept those letters for posterity!

The rest of the immigrant ancestors in my grandfather Hoskins line are a mystery to me.

3rd great-grandfather John Franklin Bryan (married to George Westfall’s daughter) was born in 1794 in VA.

I have a 4th great-grandfather Jones Stokes born about 1775 in VA.

And I have a 3rd great-grandmother Mary Keeling born about 1794 in VA.

It’s the end of the line for now identifying the immigrant ancestors in my mother’s family line.

So a review of my mom’s family for immigrant ancestors yielded two “recent” coal mining immigrant families from England, some folks born here before 1800, one “confirmed” immigrant who may have arrived young enough to be a drummer boy for the Continental Army, and a bunch of unknowns.

Many of these families arrived before there was a formal immigration/documentation requirement.

I have one old photo from this side of the family: Jones Stokes’ granddaughter, Sarah Stokes. She was my 2nd great-grandmother.

The search continues …

Previously:
Who were the Immigrants?
Who were the Immigrants? #1 Joseph Coates
Who were the Immigrants? #2 Mary Ann Harris, #3 William Harris, #4 Celia Jenkins

Sepia Saturday – Miners who Fish

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SepSat8Nov14Sepia 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.

When posting the prompt photo for this week, Alan suggested that we might consider miners or anglers with fishy tales or three men. It’s hard to tell that these men are miners when not dressed for work and no mine in sight, but the source of the photo, the Provincial Archive of Alberta reveals their identity by the photograph’s title: “Miners’ fishing trip.”

My grandfather, Thomas Hoskins, was a miner – as was his father, his wife’s father, some uncles and cousins and assorted in-laws. He left school after completing the 8th grade to work in the coal mines in Mystic, Iowa.

And he loved to fish.

Here he is as an older man, many years removed from the mines. You can see his fishing rod beside him.
Tom at the lake copy

Like the men in the prompt photo, Grandpa is reclining on a hillside and doesn’t appear to be actively engaged in fishing. Perhaps it’s all about the the fresh air, the sound of the water, the time just to relax above ground in the light of day – fresh fish for supper an added bonus or perhaps a necessary source of food for the family.

My uncle told me that Grandpa once took him down in a mine so that he could experience the total darkness and stifling confines and the ever-present sense of danger. My grandfather did not like working in the mines and when he found an opportunity to leave the coal mines in Mystic, he moved his family to another town where he worked in a meat processing plant.

I can imagine that fishing was a pastime enjoyed by many miners.

Thomas Hoskins at lake copy

Lake Rathburn May 30,1971

Please wade on over to Sepia Saturday to enjoy some other fine fish tales.