#7-2021. Unusual Source. cemetery card

 

#7-2021 Unusual Source.  The Cemetery card

The first unusual source in my search for ancestors was a cemetery card from the East Harrisburg Cemetery, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

This was my “first” genealogy research trip!  I attended a genealogy conference in Harrisburg, the home of many of my ancestors.  I was a bit apprenshive about this trip as I had never been to Pennsylvania and tackling research in a “foreign” area.  I was very lucky to have friends in Reading, Jay & Gracie Wolfe, who met me at the plane and toured me around Harrisburg. I had a list of addresses where the Shaffner family had lived and Jay graciously drove me!

One of the sites I wanted to see was where my great great grandparents, Gabriel Shaffner & his wife Margaret were buried in the East Harrisburg Cemetery.  My cousin Donnee Shaffner Stibal has listed where he was buried but never a picture of his headstone.  Jay stopped at the cemetery office so I could get directions,  Luckily the office was open, whether I knew that at the time or not, I don’t remember.   The clerk was very helpful and copied every cemetery card with the name Shaffner!  And Shaffner is a very common surname in Pennsylvania.   She handed me a map of the cemetery & gave me to directions to Shaffner plots.

Gabriel and his wife Margaret's headstone.

It was leaning that day in 2005, probably fallen over by now.

A cemetery card was a new genealogy resource for me.  As I was going through them, one name caught my attention.  The name of my grandfather’s mother, Elizabeth Deborah Fletcher!  Why was that exciting to me?  Because I never knew where she was buried!  Grandpa Shaffner never had mentioned that and Donnee had never recorded that information.   I find it unusual that Grandpa Shaffner had never written about where his mother was buried.  Grandpa Shaffner, John F. Shaffner, had written so much about his family, but never a word about his mother’s burial.  

Elizabeth Deborah Fletcher Shaffner

(1858-1899)

There was the information on the cemetery card!  Elizabeth Deborah Fletcher Shaffner was buried in her father in law’s plot.  No headstone!

Elizabeth Deborah Fletcher died in 17 November 1899.  My grandfather was 12 years old when his mother died. There were 3 other siblings, one a new born baby.  And then his father, John Martin Shaffner, remarried in 1900.  And he is buried with his second wife.  But why not a headstone?  Perhaps money was an issue.

Not only did I learn where Elizabeth was buried, but also John Martin Shaffner. 

I wonder why my grandfather never wrote about the funerals or burials.  And then I realized that his mother was buried on 18 November 1899 and his son, Don,  my father was born on 18 November 1919.  

#13-2020. Nearly Forgotten. Living at the "Home for the Friendless"

#13-2020.  Nearly Forgotten. 52 Ancestors in a year

Mary Catherine Shaffner

Mary Catherine Shaffner also known as Catherine, was the daughter of Gabriel Shaffner and Margaret Maria Fetter.  She was born  the 20th of August 1857 in Manheim, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  She was the youngest child in the family of 4. Her older brother, John Martin Shaffner, was my Grandfather’s (John F. Shaffner)  father.  Thus Mary Catherine would have been my grandfather’s aunt.

Mary Catherine never married.  She lived with her parents living for many years at 401 Herr St. in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  Gabriel was a hatmaker, a cabinet maker and even owned a grocery business. Catherine’s occupation is listed in the Harrisburg City Directory of 1887-1890 as a bleacher.  She and her father’s business, Harrisburg Bleachery, operated at 401 Herr St.  It is said that she took over her father’s hat making business when he died in 1891.

What is a bleacher?  At dictionary.com a bleacher is a person or thing that bleaches.  I suspect Catherine took in laundry to bleach.

In the 1900 census, Mary and her mother were living at 401 Boas Street.  

But I can not find Mary in the 1920 census.

In the 1930 census, Mary is living at “The Home of the Friendless” on 5th and Muench St. in Harrisburg.  There is no mention of when she entered the home.  She was 72 years old at the time the census was taken.

In the 1940 census, Catherine is living at The Home of the Friendless.  She is 83 years old.  And the census notes that she was living there in 1935.

(All census searches were done at Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org)

"Home of the Friendless". 2005

It is now the "Home Center"

Home of the Friendless admitted both childen (almost exclusively young girls) and elderly woman for the first 40 years.  By 1920 the Home was exclusively an old age home.  The Home is at Fifth and Muench in Harrisburg.  It was founded in 1872 by 18 women to provide a place for widows & orphans struggling to survive after the Civil War.  

Here is a link to the history of "The Home for the Friendless":

https://www.pennlive.com/business-news/2017/05/homeland.html


But what a sad name for a facility.  It is heart breaking to think that anyone needed that facility, especially a relative.  Catherine had no immediate family left, although she had nieces and nephews.  But who could have cared for her?

Dean Shaffner, son of my grandfather, John F. Shaffner, wrote on September 13, 1986 about a visit to Mary Shaffner.  Dean writes:  John F. Shaffner, Della (his parents) and Dean visited her (Mary Shaffner) in 1938.  She was in a rest home.  We stayed there for a night or two.  She gave me a gold wedding band.  It had belonged to her mother.  I was about 14 at that time.  I lost it at the homestead and always thought it fell through a crack in the floor of the bunk house.  Often wanted to look for it with a Geiger counter.  At that time I met Marybell Bixler.  She was a young woman then.  (Marybell was her Great-Niece)

Obituary from "The Patriot", Harrisburg, PA, Tuesday, December 3, 1940 states that Miss Mary C. Shaffner,  1901 North Fifth Street, daughter of the later Gabriel and Mary Shaffner, Harrisburg, died yesterday at her home.  She was 82 [83] years old.  Miss Shaffner was the last surviving charter member of Otterbein United Brethren Church.  Several nieces and a nephew survive.  Funeral service will be held at 2 PM Thursday at the funeral parlors of Hawkins, Inc., 1007 North Second Street.  The Rev. Charles R. Beittel of Otterbein Church, will officiate and burial will be in East Harrisburg Cemetery.  Friends may call between 7 and 9 PM tomorrow at the funeral parlors.

Information from the East Harrisburg Cemetery Company on February 25, 1986 lists Miss Mary C.  Shaffner, age 83,  is buried at the East Harrisburg Cemetery in Section 2, Lot 117

Catherine was nearly forgotten. 

I visited the Cemetery in 2005 and located her grave.  She was buried near her father and mother. My grandfather had many photos in his collection of family members, but there are none of Mary Catherine.  

We will not forget about our ancestors.

#2-2020. Favorite Photo. 52 Ancestors in a Year

#2-2020. Favorite Photo.  52 Ancestors in a Year

As the recipient & keeper of many, if not hundreds of family photos, it was very hard to choose just one favorite photo.  So I chose 2 related photos.

Yes, I really do have lots of family photos and luckily most are identified.  Thanks to my grandfather, John F. Shaffner and my cousin, Donnee Shaffner Stibal, most are identified in the Shaffner family line. 

My mother, Helen Lloyd's family also had many family pictures and most are labeled.  In both sets of inherited collections there those unlabeled ones that I am always looking for clues on.

This is picture is favorite because it is the only picture I have of my great great grandmother, Margaret Maria Fetter Shaffner.  The plus to the picture is her holding Walter Ruskin Shaffner, the youngest brother of my grandfather.   

Margaret was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1820 and died 10 November 1903 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania at 83 years of age.  

Walter Ruskin Shaffner was born 7 September 1899 and his mother died 17 November, 1899.

I believe the picture would have been taken about 1900-1902.  

Margaret Maria Fetter Shaffner, daughter of Jacob George Fetter III & Margaret Maria Ernest (or Ermet) married Gabriel Shaffner in 1845 in Pennsylvania.  Their son, John Martin Shaffner, born 15 July 1855 married Elizabeth Deborah Fletcher in 16 September 1880 in Whitesville, New York.

I suspect that Margaret helped out raising Walter Ruskin until his father remarried.  

John M. Shaffner married Emma Reamer, but she did not like his children.  The younger children all went to live with older siblings. 

Walter Ruskin Shaffner went to live with his sister, Cecelia and her husband, Richard Daggett in Tioga County, Pennsylvania.  He died December 1916 at the age of 16.  Probably from appendicitis, but the death certificate said acute indigestion.   

His older brother, John F. Shaffner, intended to bring him to Montana. He always regretted that and named his 2nd son, Walter.

This is the Shaffner Family Bible that my grandfather, John F. Shaffner,  took from his Pennsylvania home after his mother died.  Emma was not happy about that according to Grandpa.  But what a treasure it is.  

Included in the Bible was Margaret's family history which I believe are in her handwriting due to the old style of cursive script.

Don Shaffner, my father, holding the Shaffner Family Bible

The Women in my father's Family

Mother's Day got me to thinking of all of my female ancestors.    I decided to find the pictures, thus the delay in posting!  Quite a collection of women!  I can't imagine their lives, what they lived through, and how hard they worked.

Margaret Maria Fetter was born 19 May 1820 in Pennsylvania.  She married Gabriel Shaffner (father of John Martin Shaffner)  24 December 1845 in Manheim, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Margaret died 11 November 1903 in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.  She is also buried in the East Harrisburg Cemetery.  The date on the picture written by Donnee Shaffner Stibal is about 1901.  She is holding Walter Ruskin Shaffner.  Estimating Margaret's age would make her 81 year old.  Margaret's ancestor were from France; her Great Grandfather was George Fredric Fanoit who came from Montebeliard,  France in 1842.

Elizabeth Deborah Fletcher, who was born 4 July 1858 in Covington, Tioga County, Pennsylvania.  She married John Martin Shaffner on 16 September 1880 in Whitesville, Allegheny County, New York.  There is no date on the picture.  Elizabeth died 17 November 1899 in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.  I discovered that she was buried with her father-in-law at the East Harrisburg Cemetery.  There was no headstone.  Her last child, Walter Ruskin Shaffner, was born 7 September 1899.  I wonder if she was pregnant in this picture.

The Peter Paul Deewall Family.

Peter Paul came to the U.S. in 1842.  He married Catherine Troutman in Pennsylvania in 1847.

Mary Etta was the oldest girl born in 1831.  George Albert was the youngest son born in 1865

Catherine died in 1877, so this picture was taken in the 1870's.  

Mary Etta Deewall Kurtz, who was born 17 December 1849 in Pennsylvania.  Her father was Peter Paul Deewall (Duval)  who came to the U.S. in 1842 from Ludweiler, Germany.  Mary Etta married Emanuel Kurtz 23 February 1871 in Pennsylvania.  

My grandmother, Della Kurtz Shaffner.  This picture was taken in 1905 taken at her high school graduation.  She was salutatorian, although her name is at the top of the graduate list so perhaps she was valedictorian.   And I have the speech that she gave, which is labeled her salutatory speech.    She graduated from Muncy High School, in Muncy, Pennsylvania.

Della Kurtz Shaffner, my grandmother.  She married by grandfather, John Fanoit Shaffner on 12 September 1913 after their trip through Yellowstone Park.  Donnee Shaffner Stibal wrote on the picture:  Jerry and Grandma.  She rode the horse from Custer, Montana to Dillon, Montana.  After John & Della married they returned to Simms, ND where he worked as telegrapher on the railroad.  He also worked at Custer, Montana as a telegrapher.  They homesteaded near Dillon, Beaverhead County, Montana.  The story I heard was that Grandpa rode the horse to Dillon!  Since Donnee got the information from Grandpa; I will believe her story!