Heartland Genealogy

Pauline Mentzer and the Class of 1913 Sometimes the most interesting genealogy finds aren't vital records, census records, or deeds. Sometimes they are the little pieces of everyday life that help us picture an ancestor at a particular moment in time. This week's digging takes me back to the school days of my grandmother, Pauline Mentzer . Among the family materials I have is a program for the Coffey County Rural School Commencement , held in Burlington, Kansas, on May 31, 1913, at 2 p.m. The program lists the members of the county's Class of 1913 , organized by rural school district. And there, among the graduates, is my grandmother: District No. 9 Hattie Carroll Glenn James Pauline Mentzer Teacher: Bertha Werts A County-Wide Commencement The program is interesting because it wasn't simply a graduation program for one school. It brought together graduates from rural school districts scattered across Coffey County. The long list of students and teachers gives us a gl...

Pauline Mentzer's 1912–1913 Grade Card Do you have any of your ancestors' old report cards? What can those records tell us about their education and childhood? Among the items my grandmother, Pauline Mentzer, saved was her grade card from the 1912–1913 school year. This little piece of family history provides a glimpse into her education more than a century ago. A Look at Pauline's Grade Card The card identifies the pupil as Pauline Mentzer, attending District No. 1 during the 1912–1913 school year. Her grade is listed as 8–9, suggesting she was studying material associated with both the eighth and ninth grades. The report includes columns for eight months of school, although grades were entered for only the first six months. Looking at the subjects listed on the card, I was struck by both the similarities and differences between Pauline's education and the subjects taught today. Her report card included: Orthography Reading Writing Arithmetic Language Grammar Geography...

A Crandall Public School Souvenir Did your grandparents save mementos from their childhood? Perhaps an old report card, a class photograph, or a school program? My maternal grandmother, Pauline Mentzer, saved a small souvenir booklet from Crandall Public School in Coffey County, Kansas. Although the booklet is undated, it provides a glimpse into her childhood and the school she attended with her siblings. Dating the Souvenir Booklet Unfortunately, the booklet does not include a date. However, the teacher's name, the ages of the Mentzer children, and the family's movements suggest that it was likely created sometime between 1912 and 1915. In 1910, the Charles Mentzer family was living in Liberty Township, Coffey County, Kansas. According to the Burlington Independent of Burlington, Kansas, Charles Mentzer rented the H. Harreld farm near Crandall in January 1912. By 1915, the family was still living in the Crandall area, where the Kansas state census recorded them in Neosho Towns...

Pauline Mentzer’s Delayed Birth Certificate Have you ever found a birth certificate that was created decades after the birth it records? Among the records in my genealogy files is a delayed birth certificate for my grandmother, Pauline Edith Mentzer Briles . Pauline was born March 25, 1896, in Yates Center, Woodson County, Kansas, the daughter of Charles Oliver Mentzer and Nettie Adell Wells. Since Pauline was born before Kansas began statewide registration of births, there was no state birth certificate created for her in 1896. More than sixty years later, in January 1958, Pauline applied for a delayed certificate of birth. What makes this record particularly interesting is that it not only documents Pauline's birth but also identifies the evidence used to prove it. Delayed Certificate of Birth The upper portion of the certificate provides the following information: Full name at birth: Pauline Edith Mentzer Date of birth: March 25, 1896 Birthplace: Yates Center, Woodson County,...

Do you remember sitting at a microfilm reader, turning the handle as you scrolled through page after page of an old newspaper looking for a marriage announcement? When you finally found what you were searching for, did you print a copy, transcribe the entire article, or simply jot down the information that seemed important at the time? I have to admit that I sometimes chose that last option. Printing an article from microfilm wasn’t always convenient. At the library where I was researching, I had to rewind the roll, move it to a separate reader/printer, relocate the article, and then spend a quarter to make a copy. Apparently, that was enough of an obstacle for me to decide that handwritten notes would do! One of those sets of notes concerned the marriage of my great-grandparents, Charles O. Mentzer and Nettie E. Wells . Their wedding announcement appeared in the 20 October 1893 issue of The Yates Center News . Fortunately, genealogy research has changed considerably since I made those...

Charles Mentzer and Nettie Wells Marry in 1893 Have you ever looked at a marriage record and realized how much more it tells you than simply the date of the wedding? As I continue digging through the records in my genealogy files, I came across the marriage record for my maternal great-grandparents, Charles O. Mentzer and Nettie A. Wells . They were married in Woodson County, Kansas, in October 1893. While I already had their marriage date in my family tree, the actual record adds several details about the beginning of their married life. The Marriage License The license was issued by the Woodson County Probate Court on 14 October 1893 . At the time, both Charles and Nettie were residents of Yates Center, Kansas . Charles was listed as 24 years old, while Nettie was 20. The couple did not marry on the day the license was issued. Instead, the certificate on the lower portion of the record documents their marriage four days later, on 18 October 1893 . The completed license was then retur...

  The Mentzer Family Bible Do you have family Bibles tucked away among your family treasures? If so, have you taken the time to photograph or scan the family register pages? I'm fortunate to have several family Bibles that were part of my grandmother's collection. One of those Bibles belonged to the family of my grandmother, Pauline Edith Mentzer Briles . Like many family Bibles, its handwritten pages preserve information about births and a marriage that might otherwise have been lost. For this week's Monday's Diggings , I'm sharing two pages from that Bible. Parents' Names The first page identifies Pauline's parents and records their birth dates and marriage date. Transcription Family Register — Parents' Names Husband: Charles E. Mentzer Born: 1869, July 1 Wife: Nettie F. Wells Born: 1873, Feb. 5 Married: 1893, Oct. 3 This page is particularly valuable because it connects the children recorded elsewhere in the Bible directly to Charles E. Mentzer a...

Discovering the Story of Neosho Falls, Kansas One of the joys of genealogy research is that a search for an ancestor often uncovers the history of the communities where they lived. Understanding the town can help explain the lives of the people who called it home. While going through my files, I came across several photocopied pages about Neosho Falls, Woodson County, Kansas . Unfortunately, the pages are missing the title page and publication information. The even-numbered pages are headed "Southeast Kansas," suggesting that may be the title of the book, but I have not yet been able to identify the exact source. Even without the complete citation, the article provides a fascinating overview of one of Kansas' oldest communities. The Rise of Neosho Falls According to the article, Neosho Falls traces its beginnings to April 6, 1857 , when Col. N. S. Goss and I. W. Dow arrived from Iowa and discovered that only two settlers—Judge John Woolman and Joh...

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to: 1)  Determine where your ancestral families were on 18 May 1919 - 100 years ago. 2)  List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence location (as close as possible).  Do you have a photograph of their residence from about that time, and does the residence still exist? My Grandparents Leon Crawford was living with his parents at 504 Ave G in Dodge City Winnie Letha Currey was likely living with her sister, Myrtle. Winnie traveled from Kansas City to Dodge City in 1918 to help Myrtle with the birth of her first child, Dorothy. Winnie and Leon were married on Christmas Eve in 1919 at Myrtle's house. Edward O. Briles and his wife Pauline (Mentzer) Briles were likely living in Woodson County in 1919. Edward's World War I draft card indicated they were living in Everett Township, Woodson County in June of 1917. By 1920, they had moved to Allen County.

  Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music): 1)  Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with two degrees of separation?  That means "you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor."  When was that second ancestor born? My first thought was that I knew my great-grandmother, Josie Crawford. Christmas 1953: Marcia, Winnie, Josie

Emporia Gazette Wednesday, July 18, 1984 page 2 column 4-5 Film E1506 KS State Historical Society

     Charles Oliver Mentzer was born on 1 Jul 1869 in Kewanee, Henry, Illinois, United States. 1 – 12 1 , 10 , 13 – 14 He lived in Kewanee, Henry, Illinois, United States on 23 Aug 1870. 15 Chas O Mentzer was listed in the household of Geo Mentzer on the 1870 census. According to the census, Chas was 1 year old and born in Illinois. He lived in Woodson, Kansas, United States in 1871. 2

Have you ever had trouble documenting a father/son relationship? Or, have you had trouble separating records for men of the same name? My go to source in these situations has been the land records. In Kansas, we are lucky in that most counties maintain what is called the Range Index. Basically, this is an index of the land transactions for the range. What is nice about this index is that each quarter section has its own page. Thus, it is easy to see how land was transferred over time. Last August, I was able to travel to Woodson County, Kansas to track down a court case and to obtain copies of the land records for my Mentzer, Wells, and Ricketts families. Below is a transcription of the information found in the index for Range 14. Woodson County, Kansas Range 14 Index

While searching the Yates Center News for an article stating that Cleo B. Peake was awarded the purple heart, I discovered another cousin killed during World War II: PFC Lovell Mentzer. Notice of the death of Private First Class Lovell J. Mentzer first appeared in the May 3, 1945 issue of the Yates Center News on Page 1. PFC Lovell Mentzer Killed in Germany Mr. and Mrs. E. E. Mentzer received the information Tuesday from the War Department that their son, Private First Class Lovell J. Mentzer had died in Germany. Nineteen-year-old Lovell had seen ten and one-half months service in the European theatre. Graduating from Yates Center high school with the class of '44 he was inducted in the army and trained for an infantryman. In the latter part of last November he was sent over seas and was with the Seventh Army Private Mentzer has five brothers in the service, Technician Fourth Grade Keith in south Pacific, Corporal Talmadge (Tye) in England, T/5 Burdette with the AAF at C...

For some, DNA is all about their ethnicity. For me, it is all about finding actual cousins. I'm not just looking for that 7 cM of common DNA but for much longer pieces -- my cousins. Recently, I discovered that a little work on my part could improve my results on AncestryDNA . I found if I quit ignoring those green leaves (called 'shaky leaves' by some) and actually worked to confirm the hints, the number of 'shared matches' [shared ancestor hints] would increase. When I posted about this on the 11th, my DNA circles hadn't really changed. However, I now have 16 circles when I had only been seeing about six.