A Portrait of James Halls and Family

Just prior to Christmas I was contacted by an individual who had a picture of James Halls and family (from the Exeter, Ontario area). I was very surprised to say the least. The name of the person was not any that I had connected with the Halls family, though I had seen it in relation to Devon. It was a beautiful photo, a formal studio portrait taken at Senior's in Exeter, about 1890 judging by the ages and style of dress. Sadly not every name can be associated with a face, but now I have a picture, so it is only a matter of time. It is the first group picture I have of that generation.

It was, all in all, a wonderful Christmas present.

The picture itself got me looking at the details in the picture, and what struck me most were the hands of Mary Ann and James.

James' hands are quite obviously arthritic, no doubt from a lifetime of working with stone and brick and mortar, farming and farm equipment, in all types of weather. His knees also look odd. I recognize the drape of his pants over his knees from the way my father's knees looked covered by the drape of his pants. James knees are terribly arthritic and swollen just like my father.

Mary Ann's hands are quite different. They don't appear arthritic, but the skin looks awful. It appears scabby or scaley. It looks terribly painful. When you look at Mary Ann's face she is terribly stern, almost as if she is gritting her teeth in pain. Admittedly her hair style is very severe too, but she looks not at all comfortable.

James looks very much the loved patriarch of the family. A full head of white hair, a full white beard, and with a daughter resting on his knee. He looks successful, comfortable, and content with his life. Obviously father and daughter are very close. I suspect that she is the youngest, Lillian (Lilly) Halls.

The rest of the family simply seems to be there, just in the picture. They seem content too, healthy, happy, and young. At least they seem that way as much as one can tell from a photo from a time when you needed to hold still for five to ten seconds.

The Mysterious Samuel Halls Jnr.

Well, I knew something was strange about Samuel Halls. I now have the first inklings of what might be going on. I found a story in the Chicago Tribune dated Feb 5th, 1912. The story headline reads:

Accused of Farm Swindle.
Samuel Halls Arrested on Charge of Mis-
using Money Given Him for
Canteloupe Scheme

The story then goes on to say that he was charged embezzling $6,128, and that he was released on $6,000 bail.

Happily I have contacts in Chicago who will try and track down what happened with the police and in the courts. Perhaps it will shed light on why his wife and son moved to the other side of the United States.

Stay tuned.

The Mysterious Samuel Halls and his More Mysterious Son Samuel Halls

The family of Samuel Halls is one of the most interesting, if not the most interesting, branch of the family that I have found.

Samuel Snr. was an observer for the British government during the American Civil War. He lived a long time, 85 years. His brothers were well known in the area where they all lived. And then this is where it starts to get odd. I have only found one reference to him in the local papers, besides his obituary, and that is a brief mention of him being an MC for the local Orange Lodge. I cannot find any marriage record for him and his wife. I cannot find any death record or place of burial for his wife. He died in the local House of Refuge (a combination of old age home and home for the unwell). His Ontario death record lists his nationality as Irish! He had no will, or at least none that I could find.

For the most part his children moved to the United States, in and around Chicago. His son Samuel Jnr. became a mover in high society in Chicago, living in the right neighbourhoods, being socially active. He was a highly successful builder. Sometime between 1910 and 1920 it all came apart. He appears to have been estranged from his wife and children. The 1920 census lists both of them, each claiming to be widowed. She was in Portland living with their son Allen Samuel Halls, he was in Chicago, apparently living in an apartment or boarding house. He died in 1930 in Crystal Lake, Illinois. Samuel has a will, but it has been misfiled, so like his father, we have no record of the final disposition of his effects.

There are no pictures that I have been able to find of either Samuel Snr. or Samuel Jnr.

All in all, very frustrating. Why can I not find pictures? How likely is it that the wills of both father and son would be un-findable? What happened to Samuel Jnr. that made it all fall apart? Why would Samuel Jnr. and his wife and son be estranged from each other? If Samuel and his wife were estranged from each other, why are they buried next to each other in Chicago?

Lots of questions and no answers. Stay tuned for more.

Reflections on Annie Halls and Emma Tanton

A few days ago I found a picture from North Dakota that has Annie Halls, and (probably) her brother Philip Halls in it. I had been to the Digital Horizons site before and not found anything, but this time, poof! There is was. It was a group picture of ND pioneers taken back in July of 1939 during a picnic. To be honest, they all look rather wilted by the heat.

On the other side of the world, 29 years prior to that picnic in the summer of 1939 is a picture of Emma Tanton, widow of Samuel Halls. In this case it is a stone laying ceremony for the local Baptist manse in Dolton, Devon. The picture appears to be taken on a cool day, and there are leaves on the trees and bushes. In so many ways the complete opposite of the North Dakota picture. A secular vs religious gathering. Warm vs cold. England vs America. Sunset of empire vs dawn of empire.

It leads one to reflect on the lives of Annie and Emma. Both pictures are taken not long before the World Wars. Annie lived to know that the Allies had won both wars, but Emma died in January of 1918 while issue was still in doubt. Emma had the added burden of fearing for the life of a child. She never knew if William James Halls survived the Great War, though I know he did. Annie never married or had children, though she took in at least two foster children/orphans. One of them may have fought in the WWI, but I can't find him.

I wonder if they knew of each other, and what they might have thought of their respective lives if they did. I suspect there was some contact between the families, for long involved genealogical reasons I won't get into here. They were both, in their ways, successful. Most likely they were well thought of by their communities. Certainly they lived very different lives. Emma lead a life that was secure, as far as I can tell from my place 100 year later. She did all the things a good English middle class woman should have done. Married, had children, supported her church. Her husband Samuel appears to have done much the same. Married, had children, supported his church. He followed in his father's and grandfather's footsteps, becoming a mason and builder, and generally supporting English society.

Annie did not follow a life path like that of Emma, or her cousin Samuel. She left her home in Ontario about 1900 and went to North Dakota. In Ontario she could have married, had children, and lead a quiet, comfortable life, with minimal hardship. Instead she chose to leave for an area that was still largely unsettled. She became a farmer, and never married or had children. One wonders why she made the choices she did, what she thought of the world she lived to see. She was born before airplanes, and lived to see men go into space.

In the end, I suppose I will always wonder. The chances of finding letters that give me insight into their personalities are small. On the other hand, Charlotte Halls has a letter posted to the Canadian Letters and Images Project, so there is always hope.

Health Records

I came across this site about a week ago called My Family Health Portrait. It is provided by the Surgeon General of the United States, and, as you might guess by the name, it allows you to create a health history for your family. It is available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese(?). My only complaint is that it is an online tool, with no software to download that I could find.

It did get me thinking that creating a family health history is a good thing. We have no doubt all come across patterns of disease in our families (if you haven't you may not be looking hard enough). In my own particular family I have found three different things. The first is from personal experience - both my father and his father died of respiratory cancer. Seeing as they were both heavy smokers we can guess what the cause of that was.

I don't smoke.

The second is that my great uncle and one of his descendants both died from ALS.

The third goes all the way back to one of the earliest official records of my line, Philip Halls death certificate from 1846, which states that he died from apoplexy. Now apoplexy, as used in the mid 1800's usually meant a sudden and catastrophic death from some sort of internal cause, for example a heart attack or a stroke. In the case of Philip I strongly suspect his apoplexy was actually a massive stroke. The reason I suspect it is because his grandson Samuel Pollard Halls also died from a stroke. Sadly, Samuel did not die as quickly as his grandfather. He lingered for a month after his stroke before dying.

Recent studies have indicated that knowing the medical history of both sides of your family is a very good idea. For example, it has been found that the risk of breast cancer on the father's side affects the risk of breast cancer in the daughter, which was not thought to be the case.

So don't ignore those little snippets of information. Find out what various family members died of, and if possible find out at what age they were first diagnosed with the condition that they had. Knowing this might allow you, or your children, or other family members, to avoid the same fate.

What to do With Spicy Stories

So I have a number of stories about family members, things that illuminate the personalities of the people in question. I also have reflections on what they were like based on those stories, or what I know of their lives. My problem is that the stories and reflections are not always exactly flattering.

We all have relatives that were drunks, wife beaters, petty (or not so petty) criminals, and so on. My experience is that most family stories don't focus on the unsavoury part of the people, they focus on the good things, and yet isn't the bad stuff part of what are ancestors were?

There is also the issue of what other relatives may think of what I have written. We aren't supposed to speak ill of the dead, but do I(we) really want one dimensional always nice, kind understanding people, when they might not have been nice, kind people. To a certain extent we can view our ancestors through the lens of the time they lived in. In other words, were they good people, or at least no worse than average, according to the understanding of the time?

So what to do? Try to make ancestors out to be better than they were, or present them as real people, warts and all?

Some Interesting Links

Just a few links that I found out about through Geneanet.

The first is the Domesday on a map, from the National Archives of England. Meeth, Dolton, and Beaford show up, among others, but there is no Merton, or St Giles in the Wood.

The second is UK History Photo Finder, pictures from the 1920's -1940's.

The last is an article about a digitization project for aerial photos of Britain. You can sign up for updates at aerofilms@english-heritage.org.uk. It may be called Britain from Above, but the name was not directly stated.