New Territory

  I am entering new territory in recent history for our family.  We are expecting our third kiddo this fall.  Not since my great-grandparents has either of my branches had 3 or more kiddos.  Our two that we already have are Bubby (age 8) and Mookie (age 6).  They are super excited and are going to be great helpers. 
  The most major change is going to be where to put the little one.  In this age of plenty it's so easy to get caught up in each person having their own space and needing more room.  Practicality is leading us to do with what we have and work with it.  I'm taking alot of inspiration from how families used to do it as well as some awesome friends and cousins who have done the same thing.   No matter what we are feeling super blessed and anxiously awaiting the new adventures we will have!
  

My Christian Heritage

Lafayette Mauzey

   Lafayette Mauzey is my great great great Grandfather.  He was born in 1835 in Missouri.  His mother's family were big time slave owners and although not much is known about his father, we do know that he in addition to being a piano teacher was a gambler. These factors shaped Lafayette, not to emulate those lifestyles, but to go in the opposite direction.  Lafayette moved to Kansas and fought for freedom on the Union side.  He also became a Methodist Episcopal minister and was very opposed to gambling.

 

Lafayette's preacher's license

  His son Oscar Mauzey was a strong Christian.  He followed his father's lead and disallowed anything that resembled gambling (cards).  Both Lafayette and Oscar and Oscar's son (my great-grandfather) Cecil are memorialized in the Cummings Methodist Church stained glass windows.

Oscar Mauzey stained glass

 Oscar's son, Cecil was also a strong Christian.  When church services were going, you could hear Cecil singing loud enough to be heard outside.  Not that he was any good, just loud, praising God:)

Cecil Mauzey

 As a Bible believing Christian, I am so proud to have these guys and many others as my ancestors.  Thanks grandpas!

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!!

  My Aunt Frances was the family keeper.  Her son (my cousin) and I have been working in tandem on family research to get our Gentry family and branches ironed out.  He recently sent some scantly identified photos which I was thrilled to be able to help out in identification of!

"Aunt Bee"

  Meet Rebecca Amelia Pribble Shields otherwise known as "Aunt Bee".  She is the only full sister to my great-great grandmother Flora Helen Marr Pribble Gentry.  Growing up I had heard fond references to this aunt:) 

"Uncle Herschel, Aunt Clara & Carl?"

   Meet my great-great-Uncle Herschel, Aunt Clara, and I think their son Carl ("Bee" would have been Hersch's aunt).  Uncle Hersch had one other son named Herschel Raymond who died when he was only 6, so I think this was taken after his death when Carl would have been about 10 in 1919/20.  

Hersch and Clara settled in Washington State.

"Uncle Ed"

  Meet "Uncle Ed"  I am pretty sure that this is Ed Pribble, half brother to "Bee" and Flora.  I have not seen a picture of him before, but there aren't any other likely candidates and I can see the resemblance to his father, Samuel Winfield Scott Pribble. *Note* - how wonderful are cousins?!?  This is not Ed Pribble, but most likely Edgar Gentry!  Thanks guys! :)  So much for the "resemblance" ;) (3/28/13)
   I am so excited to see what other treasures might lie in Aunt Frances's collection!

Meet Grandpa Duff and his family

James Kennedy Duff was born in Pennsylvania in 1819. His wife Mary Ann Bennett was born in 1827.  She's who I'll concentrate on, but James is important to my husband's family because after Mary Ann died in 1879, he moved the family to Osage County, KS, where we now live (plus I have a picture of him!, isn't he handsome?).  According to a sometimes sketchy, sometimes wonderfully detailed written down history by a gr-gr-aunt years ago, Mary Ann was the daughter of Robert and Mattie (Thompson) Bennett.  Now in the family history it mentions that Mattie's parents were Moses and Margaret Thompson and that Moses died in a snowstorm.  No dates, not other info.  Now that just pushes me to find more when someone gives me a great carrot of detail like that, so Moses and Margaret have always been one of my goals to find info on.  The other day I made a breakthrough!  I was checking into Robert Bennett's records on our family tree and I saw a notation that the proof of certainty that 1850 census I had for him was hinging on there being Kennedys & Thompsons on the same page (I refer you to James K. Duff's middle name, which is a family name too).  So I checked it out and these guys were on the same page...

I followed up on these guys on ancestry.  I have learned with other families that researching siblings has been fruitful.  And I found this...

 Looks pretty good!  So many things in genealogy after a certain point become circumstantial.  I try to be diligent in my research, and follow up and show wills, etc... too.
The moral of the story is, no matter how much you just want to keep moving backwards in the past, sometimes you have to go in a round about way, but because of that you might find some more interesting characters that make research more interesting!

Crazy times

Thinking on past winter researching has me thinking about all the crazy things my mom and I have done over the years since we started researching together.  Driving to a cemetery in the dark of night, searching by headlight and flashlight just because we didn't want to give up for the day.  Traveling down deserted roads in hopes of finding that secluded cemetery that might or might not hold an ancestor (this being before cell phones I might add).  And of course the one that led to this picture... we tromped all over this little cemetery uncovering the snowy mounds to see who's stone lay underneath.  Using our feet as sonar to find flat stones until we found ggg-grandma Pouppirt:)  Snow really brings out the inscription I might say (as well as mud, but that's another story!). I love "cemetery stomping" as we call it.

Border Ruffians

  Today the kiddos and I went with a few of our friends to Missouri Town 1855 in Lee's Summit, Missouri.  Missouri Town contains furnished buildings from the period, as well as actors who display some of the activities that common folk would have done during the time.  What a wonderful experience for our kiddos to be able to see history in action.

  We took a lunch and ate at an area with picnic tables.  When we were mostly through, the kids wandered down the hill to explore.  They came back running: "there's tombstones down there!".  Well, I just had to investigate.  What we found was a cemetery along the side of a brushy area where 5 stones were still standing with a handful of stone bases.  Since I had my camera, I took shots of all that I could.  The following is one of the stones:

    I later found out that the stones were ones acquired from the local police and had been victims of vandalism or ones that had been abandoned.   
    Once we got home, I loaded up ancestry.com and did some research.  Colby Cowherd Twyman was a slave owning farmer who moved to Missouri before 1840 from Kentucky.  The tombstone lists his death date as July 5, 1863.  To give some background on the hostility of the time, in late August of 1863, Quantrill burned Lawrence, KS, and Order 11 was put into affect.  Order 11 said that the four counties of Bates, Cass, Jackson and Vernon had to be evacuated - and this meant whatever force necessary.  Due to the border tension in the area and the time that he died I am assuming that he was killed by Free-Staters.  Some of the Twymans in the area had ties to William C. Quantrill as well as the Younger Gang, which reinforces this hypothesis. 
  Even though these stones came from sad circumstances, you can still gain alot of history from them.  Look for history everywhere, you never know what you'll find!

Family Treasures

     One of my favorite things about the antiques in my house is that every one has a story.  The most special ones are those that were owned by my ancestors, whether it be a small trinket, or a piece of furniture, each one has a tie to those that helped form who I am and I love it!

   One of my most unique items is a chair that belonged to my gr-gr-grandpa Milton Hight Gentry.  As far as family stories, I don't have many that flesh him out as a person.  Milton was born in 1843 in Indiana.  He was a farmer by trade and he and his brother and father served in the Civil War.  His brother was badly wounded and lost a limb at the battle of Antietam.  He married Flora Pribble in 1873.  The family moved to Woodson Co., Kansas in the mid-1880s, where they stayed for the remainder of their lives.

     When I was first starting on my research of this side of the family, I found a cousin who had the large research collection of an aunt of hers.  My mother and I spent several long days digging through boxes of unorganized research of this cousin, digging up precious nuggets of info and pictures that I only might be able to locate in my lifetime on my own. When we were there one day in that hot garage sifting through papers, my cousin motioned to a box that held pieces to this chair and told me that if I would do something with it then I could have it.  Of course, I jumped at the chance!  A few years later I had it put back together and have enjoyed it ever since.  I can just imagine Grandpa Milton reclining in it:)