Coop's Corner

Sunday, February 23, 2020

Some Predecessors

This has been mentioned before, in fact, mentioned more than once in my Blog. Family records and photos have been kept by my grandparents and my parents, their cousins, relatives, some of the relatives very distant. Detailed family trees with parents, children, birth dates, deaths, marriage dates and sometimes other dates as well.

I've known that all of these records were in existence but it wasn't until we started packing and combining everything for our house remodel that the extent of these records were finally easy to appreciate since they haven't always been in one place, something I worked hard at gathering and then boxing. Now, especially so while temporarily in the apartment, items are being cataloged, scanned and some, now shared.

So far I've focused on the Cooper side of the Cooper side.

The oldest Cooper I've found at this point.....

My paternal grandfather's mother's side, the Hulburt's....

Isaac Cooper, my great great grandfather. He came from CT, spent time in PA and then settled near Sparta, Wisconsin. Using copies of old plat books, I've located the farm that he and his wife, Elizabeth Cooper (Decker) worked and have stopped there for a photo. That property butts up against the current Fort McCoy.

Elizabeth and Isaac Cooper (someone flipped the names).

Isaac and Elizabeth had 8 children, one of whom was Albert, my great grandfather. The young Albert, the late 1860's.

Albert and Hattie Cooper (Hulburt) as young marrieds in 1887.

John P. Cooper was one of Albert's brothers.....

Emery Cooper was also one of Albert's brothers. He and his wife farmed in Gettysburg, SD.

I remember very well sitting next to my grandfather, Allen, one of Albert's sons. We'd often sit on the davenport and Gramp would share photo albums, stories he'd written, train schedules.....he was fascinated with trains and the railroads. He'd spent many miles and a lot of time "riding the rails, bumming out West". One of our relatives, a more distant cousin was named Birge Haviland and Birge was someone that I heard a lot about. Birge was an Engineer for the Rock Island, a very prestigious position at the time, certainly one highly esteemed by my grandfather.

Here's a photo of the Birge Haviland family.....Birge on the top row in the middle. One of Birge's sons, Holmes, is in the next row down, he and his wife the first ones in that row, their youngest daughter in their lap. The little girls in the front row are their daughters Ruth and Elizabeth.

This photo, looking like a publicity photo to me, is of the young woman Ruth, after she had married Dale Seitz in what looks obviously like a pilot's uniform. It made me very curious since I don't remember ever hearing anything about any of the Haviland's other than Birge and Holmes.

An Internet search ensued....and I learned a great deal about The Ninety-Nines, Inc. An organization still going strong, it was named for the first 99 chartered women pilots. The group started in 1929 and Ruth had married Dale Seitz, also a pilot....

In some familiar company....

My great grandmother Hattie....

I'm not sure about this, other than it's Hattie.....might be their first farm house?

Later, their farm on Poor Farm Road....

Hattie, her two sisters and Peach, Hattie's pet cow.

I'm still working on my grandmother's side, the Beard/Castille family. Their history from Cardiff, Wales and Oskaloosa, Iowa and later Vananda, Montana.

But first, a scooter update this week. I'm out of town all week and will Post an update on the scooter project from my motel room.

Others say....

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)