Tombstone Tuesday: Sandor "Alex" Farkas, Born on Christmas?

Great-uncle Sandor (Alex) Farkas (1885-1948) was born in December 1885, in Botpalad, Hungary to my great-grandparents, Moritz Farkas and Leni Kunstler Farkas. His actual birth record, shown below, says December 12, but Alex always wrote December 25 on all his U.S. official records.*

Alex was married to Jennie Katz (1886-1974) on Christmas Eve, 1914, one of several weddings in my family tree that took place on December 24th.

Both Alex and Jennie are buried in Mt. Hebron Cemetery in NY, within the plot of the Kossuth Ferencz Hungarian Literary Sick & Benevolent Association, which Alex helped to found in 1904.

* Turns out he sometimes claimed a different birth date. In 1918, Alex told the draft board that he was born Jan 5, 1885, suggesting he was almost a full year older than he really was. Hmm.

Amanuensis Monday: Happy New Year 1913

This pretty new year's card is part of my long-running series of greetings sent to hubby's uncle in Cleveland, early in the twentieth century.

Postmarked January 1, 1913, the card was sent to Wallis W. Wood by his first cousin, Edith Eleanor Baker (1901-1989)--well, this is Amanuensis Monday, so read on for the real story.

Edith was one of two daughters of Adelaide Mary Ann Slatter (1868-1947) and her husband, James Sills Baker (1866-1937). I wrote a week ago about Adelaide's poverty-stricken childhood in Hamlet Towers, London, which I was researching when looking at a holiday card sent by Edith's sister, Dorothy, to Wallis.

Edith was 11 and living in Toledo with her family when this New Year's greeting was addressed to 7-year-old Wallis in Cleveland:

Hello Wallis, This is from Edith. She hopes you will have such a good time this coming year. I forgot to say the girls had to go to school this week excepting Wednesday. With love from all, Edith

Doesn't this greeting sound like Edith wrote it from dictation? I doubt her cousin Wallis knew how to read cursive yet, so I suspect it was a message meant more for Wallis's mom, Mary Slatter Wood (1869-1925), who was Adelaide Mary Ann's baby sister. By the way, in the family, Adelaide was known as "Ada."

Here's the advantage of having a series of cards sent in a short time. I compared the handwriting of "Edith" (from the 1913 card at top) with the handwriting of "Aunt Ada" from 1914 (at right).

Both cards were addressed to "Master Wallis Wood" in Cleveland (and postmarked from Toledo). Same handwriting, wouldn't you agree? So Ada was writing on behalf of her daughter, Edith, to Ada's nephew, Wallis Walter Wood. Keeping up the family tradition of having the cousins stay in touch with each other, clearly.

Ada and her family moved to Cleveland from Toledo some time between 1910 and 1920, I knew by comparing their addresses in the Census from those years. With these cards, I could see that Ada didn't move until at least after April, 1914.

In 1920, Ada and family lived in the 26th ward of Cleveland, the same ward where Mary Slatter Wood and family lived. But Mary was living in a single-family home built by her husband, carpenter James Edgar Wood, while Ada was living in a two-family home rented not far away. 

By the way, I checked, and the last Wednesday in 1912 before New Year's was Christmas Day. No school on Christmas!

Save the Dates for NERGC, April 26-29

Save the dates for the New England Regional Genealogical Conference, April 26-29, in Springfield, Massachusetts. 

The theme is "Using the Tools of Today & Tomorrow to Understand the Past." As always, the program is packed with informative sessions and workshops.

I can't wait to see the featured speakers in person, especially Thomas MacEntee, Kenyatta Berry, and Warren Bittner.

My session, "Planning a Future for Your Family's Past," is part of the new "Genealogy Heirlooms in the Attic" track on the afternoon of Thursday, April 27th.

I'm delighted to have been chosen as an official blogger, which means I'll be posting about the conference before, during, and after. 

Early-bird pricing for registration is available now. Just click here to sign up! See you in April.

Sorting Saturday: "Best Xmas Wishes" from Cousin Ernest

Yet another colorful holiday card among dozens received by Wallis Walter Wood from his cousins and other relatives. (WWW was my hubby's uncle.)

This time, the sender was cousin Ernest J. Carsten (1906-?). Ernest was one of a handful of children born to Mary Amanda Wood (1884-1917) and August Jacob Carsten (1884-1975).

Reading the 1910 Census where Ernest is listed with his family in Toledo, Ohio, I noticed that August was a carpenter. Since Mary Wood's brothers were carpenters, maybe she was introduced to future husband August through one of them?

This postcard has no postmark...but Ernest was already writing in cursive, so it was probably sent in 1915 or 1916. I doubt it was sent later.

Sadly, in January, 1917, Ernest's mother Mary died at age 32, in emergency surgery as doctors tried to save her life. The cause written on her death certificate is "extrauterine gestation, tubal," with the contributory cause being "internal hemorrhage and shock." 

Late in the summer of 1917, his father remarried and the family had a new step-mom (Mathilda C. Kohne, 1892-1948). And that was the summer WWW and his brothers (including my late dad-in-law) took a road trip in their new 1917 Ford to visit Cousin Ernest and his siblings.