Friday Find
Remembering Lida Anita Crawford Lighter
One of the things I enjoy about genealogy is discovering how much family history can be found in a single newspaper clipping. Obituaries are particularly valuable because they often provide information about several generations of a family, along with details about where they lived and their connections to the community.
This week's Friday Find is an obituary for Lida Anita (Crawford) Lighter, published in the Dodge City Daily Globe on December 13, 1945.
Lida was my great-grand-aunt, a daughter of my second-great-grandparents, Washington Marion Crawford and Mary Foster. Her brother, Judson Crawford, was my great-grandfather.
A Longtime Dodge City Resident
The obituary appeared under the headline "Long Time Resident Dies."
It reported that Mrs. A. H. Lighter, age 74, had died Thursday morning at Murray Memorial Hospital in Dodge City, Kansas. She had been hospitalized for about a week and had experienced declining health for several years.
The article provided a brief account of her early life:
Mrs. Lighter's maiden name was Lida Anita Crawford. She was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Marion Crawford and was born 22 Dec. 1871 in Indiana. She came to Dodge City in 1884 with her parents.
That one paragraph connects Lida to two important locations in my Crawford family research: Indiana and Dodge City, Kansas.
Lida was born in Indiana during the years following the Civil War. In 1884, when she was about twelve years old, she accompanied her parents to Dodge City.
By the time of her death in 1945, she had lived in the Dodge City community for more than sixty years.
Her Father's Connection to Fort Dodge
One of the most interesting parts of this obituary is its description of Lida's father, Washington Marion Crawford.
The newspaper reported:
Her father was a civil war veteran who moved west with the settlement of Kansas. He helped convert the former military post at Fort Dodge into a soldiers' home.
Washington Marion Crawford served in the 2nd New York Cavalry during the Civil War and was a prisoner of war at Andersonville.
His involvement in the establishment of the soldiers' home at Fort Dodge is an interesting connection between his military service and his later life in Kansas.
The obituary also mentions that he was a brother of a pioneer real estate developer who subdivided Crawford's Division, which had become an extensive part of Dodge City.
This is an example of why I find obituaries so valuable. While the article was written to announce Lida's death, it also preserved information about her father's activities and the Crawford family's role in the development of Dodge City.
Marriage and Family
On August 11, 1897, Lida married Alvin Hamilton Lighter, a member of another pioneer Dodge City family.
The obituary reported that Alvin had died two years earlier.
Lida and Alvin were the parents of six children who survived her:
Mrs. Walter Beggs of Ensign, Kansas
Chester Lighter of Dodge City, Kansas
Kenneth Lighter of Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Mrs. Marie Kuithe of St. Louis, Missouri
Mrs. Dorothy Cei of Little Rock
Mrs. Vera Brown of Roscoe, Illinois
The article provides an especially interesting detail about Chester Lighter. He had returned from overseas in October 1945 after serving with Dodge City's Company D, which had been mobilized five years earlier.
Since World War II had ended only a few months before Lida's death, this reference places her family's experiences within another major period of American history.
The obituary also identified two surviving brothers, J. F. Crawford and Nelson Crawford, both residents of Dodge City.
These names and locations provide valuable clues for tracing the Crawford and Lighter families through additional records.
A Lifetime in the Methodist Church
The obituary indicates that Lida was a lifelong member of the Methodist Church.
Church membership is another detail that can be useful in genealogical research. Church records, anniversary histories, and newspaper accounts of church activities sometimes provide information that cannot be found in traditional vital records.
For a woman who spent more than sixty years in Dodge City, local church and community records might reveal additional details about her life.
Funeral and Burial
A second article appeared in the Dodge City Daily Globe on Saturday, December 15, 1945, under the headline "Funeral to be Monday."
It announced that Lida's funeral would be held at 2 o'clock Monday afternoon at the Hulpieu-Morgan and Swaim Funeral Chapel.
The services were to be conducted by Rev. O. Ray Cook of Dodge City and Rev. Howard Benton of Montezuma.
Burial was to take place in Maple Grove Cemetery in Dodge City.
Why This Obituary Is a Friday Find
This obituary is much more than a notice of Lida's death.
It provides her birth date and birthplace, identifies her parents, documents her family's move to Dodge City, and gives her marriage date. It also names her surviving children and brothers, along with their places of residence.
Beyond those basic genealogical facts, the obituary contains several details that help tell the family's story.
It connects Washington Marion Crawford to the establishment of the soldiers' home at Fort Dodge. It mentions the Crawford family's involvement in Dodge City's early development. And it provides a glimpse of the family's experiences during World War II through Chester Lighter's military service.
These are the kinds of details that make newspaper research so rewarding.
I originally obtained this newspaper information from the Kansas State Historical Society's newspaper collection, where I spent many hours reading Kansas newspapers on microfilm. My handwritten transcription preserves the information from the original articles.
Today, as I revisit those older research notes, I am reminded of how valuable those hours spent at the microfilm reader were.
Sometimes a Friday Find isn't a newly discovered document. Instead, it is an older record that deserves another look because of the family connections and historical details it contains.
And Lida Anita Crawford Lighter's obituary is certainly one of those records!
Sources
Dodge City Daily Globe (Dodge City, Kansas), Thursday, December 13, 1945, page 9, column 3, "Long Time Resident Dies"; handwritten transcription from newspaper microfilm, Kansas State Historical Society.
Dodge City Daily Globe (Dodge City, Kansas), Saturday, December 15, 1945, page 8, column 4, "Funeral to be Monday"; handwritten transcription from newspaper microfilm, Kansas State Historical Society.
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