Sunday's Obituary - Frank R. Vestal

Tonight's obituary post is a two-for-one deal.  I have 2 obituaries for my great-grandfather, Frank R. Vestal.

What I know about my great grandfather:

Frank R. Vestal was born on Feb. 1, 1904 in Longton, Elk, Kansas.  He married my great-grandmother, Ruby Irene VanRoyen on August 3, 1923.  Together they had 3 children, but only 2 survived.  One of their sons only lived 5 days. Ruby died in May 1929.  He remarried to Eleanor Marie Baker on Feb. 2, 1931 also in Longton, Kansas.  They had 4 children, however one died at birth.  According to Census records, he lived in Elk County, Kansas all but the last 10 years or so of his life before dying on January 23, 1972 in Dodge City, Ford, Kansas, and a brief residence in Chautauqua County, Kansas between 1920 and 1930.  Below are two obituaries I have for him.

Transcription for the above obituary:

FRANK R. VESTAL

DODGE CITY, Kan - Services for Frank R. Vestal, 67, employe of Ford County Highway Department, will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday in Hulpiett-Swaim Funeral Home. Burial will be at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in Longton (Kan.) Cemetery. He died Sunday. 

Born at Longton, he came to Dodge City about 10 years ago.

Survivors include his widow, Marie; three sons, Francis E., Salina. Kan., Ralph Jr., Dodge City, and Gary R., Denver; two daughters, Mrs. Chet Harris, Amarillo, Tex., and Mrs. Wilbur Persinger, Longton, and two brothers, Nathan and Garrett, and a sister, Mrs. Frank Kimzey, all of Longton.

Transcription of the above obituary:

Frank R. Vestal

Frank R. Vestal, 66, of the Prairie Village trailer court, died Sunday evening in Trinity Hospital, after a very brief illness. He was born Feb. 1, 1904, at Longton, in Elk county, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Hilary Vestal.

Mr. Vestal grew up in Elk county and lived there, where he was a farmer and stockman, until about 10 years ago. He and Miss Marie Baker were married Feb. 2, 1931, at Longton.

They moved to Dodge City about 10 years ago. Here, Mr. Vestal was employed by the county highway department.

He was a member of th Dodge City First Christian Church and of the Masonic Lodge of Elk Falls.

Survivors include the widow; three sons, Francis of Salina, Ralph Jr. of Dodge City and Gary R. of Denver, Colo.; two daughters, Mrs. Chet (Lois) Harris of Amarillo, Tex., and Mrs. Wilbur (Marjorie) Persinger of Longton; two brothers, Nathan and Garrett, and a sister, Mrs. Frank Kimsey, all of Longton; 14 grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

The Funeral has been set for 2 p.m. Tuesday in the Hulpiet-Swaim Funeral Home chapel with Sheldon Thomas, minister, officiating. Burial with Masonic graveside rites, will be at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Longton cemetery.

Rainy Day Saturday Genealogy

It's been raining off and on all day today, including the thunderstorm that woke me up at 5am this morning.  I did get back to sleep, only to wake up again around 8am.  I decided to stay up since I had agreed to help my grandmother fix her computers and show her some of the documents and photos I've gathered recently on her side of the family tree.  That's been postponed until tomorrow though.

I did make some progress today in my RootsMagic database.  I sourced the marriages of my great aunt Ozella Lee Hazlett and her husband.  I also sourced the marriage of my 2nd great-grandfather Hillary F. Vestal and 2nd great-grandmother Malvina Chappel, and the marriage of my 3rd great-grandfather Alexander Vestal and Delanah Gross.  Another marriage I sourced was of my 3rd great-grandfather, Moses Chappel and his wife Kissiah Swaim.  I've been slowly making progress catching up on my source citations in my database.

I was browsing ancestry.com earlier, and I found city directories for my great-grandfather Ralph Leo Hazlett and my great-grandmother Lois Lavon McDonald (with both Ralph Hazlett in 1942 and her 2nd husband in 1954) and add residence entries for each with source citations for them.

All in all, not a bad way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Getting back into the swing of things

So I have taken quite a break in my own genealogy research.  Mostly because I work full time and had to choose work over the research unfortunately.  I've been slowly digging through the 1940 census records looking for my ancestors and have found several so far! 

Still haven't found my elusive Hazletts in the 1900 census, but I still hold hope that they will be found someday.

I make no promises, but am going to try to update here more often than I have in the past.  At least on the weekends when I am off from work and not buried in records/research!

Elusive ancestors in the 1900 census

My great-great grandfather, John Wesley Hazlett along with his parents and siblings continue to elude me in the 1900 census.

John Wesley Hazlett was born November 4, 1884 in Jewell County, Kansas.  He married my great-great grandmother, Mamie Kate Wallace on January 6, 1906 in Brunswick, Charition, Missouri.  According to the 1910 census they were living in Boons Lick, Howard, Missouri.  Since the 1890 census was mostly destroyed and he wasn't born until after the 1880 census, I thought I could find him around age 5 or 6 in the 1900 census... but so far no luck.

His father, William H. Hazlett (born November 18, 1846 in Ohio) and mother, Jessie Henderson (born October 30, 1856 in Eccles, Berwickshire, Scotland) were living in Jewell County, Kansas as of the 1880 census.  In the 1910 census, William and Jessie were living in Brunswick, Chariton, Missouri.

I have slowly been going through the census records for Chariton County, Missouri on ancestry.com but so far have yet to find them and searching for common misspellings of Hazlett hasn't yielded any luck either.  I still hold hope that this brick wall will come down and I will someday find where they have been hiding in the 1900 Census.

Death Certificate received!

Today's mail finally had what I have been waiting for from the State of Indiana.  My great-great grandfather, Arie Blom's death certificate!

There was a note attached to the receipt regarding the fact that many of the older records were printed on very porous paper and that due to the age and condition of the orginal document, the above certificate was the best reproduction they could make.

So, in addition to the ships passenger list, I now have a second source listing Jacob Blom as his father, but still no documentation of who Arie's mother was.

Small Brick Wall torn down

So I have been researching my great-great grandfather, Arie Blom Sr., and had gotten stuck on getting his death certificate.  I had sent away for it in the state of Illinois based on the following newspaper posting I found on Ancestry.com

So with the above article, I had decided to search in Cook County, Illinois for his death records since the article had mentioned Lansing as where his daughter and her husband were going to.  I also checked the date of the newspaper and looked up a calendar for 1943 and found according to the article his date of death was July 19, 1943.  

Well, I sent off for a copy of his death certificate from Cook County, and was surprised when I got a letter back stating no records found for the information I gave him.  Especially since I found an entry on interment.net for him and his wife buried at Homewood Memorial Gardens in Homewood, Cook, Illinois. 

I called Homewood Memorial Gardens and asked them to send me a copy of his burial record and the first one I sent was actually for his son, Arie Blom, Jr.   When I finally got the right record, I figured out why Cook County doesn't have a death certificate for him:

At the very bottom of the record, under remarks... "POD: Hammond, In.  No int order, too old".  So now, I am waiting for the State of Indiana to do their search and hopefully within a week or so I will have my great-great-grandfather's death certificate in my hands.

Absent no more

I had pretty much abandoned the blog for awhile because life just got in the way.

I am back now and am working on a post about my great-great-grandfather, Arie Blom Sr. that I am going to be posting a little bit later today.