Laurel’s Banana Bread: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Family Recipe”

Crumbling Recipe Card is a Sweet Reminder

Laurel Emily Jandy: 1926-2016 (Mother)

 

One of our favorite family recipes is a banana bread recipe Bruce’s mom Laurel gave me. Not only is it a great and easy recipe, but the recipe card is written in Laurel’s hand. Just seeing that handwriting brings back fond memories.

The recipe card has seen hard use in the thirty-five years I’ve had it. There are grease stains, scorch marks, and  fingerprints that have left brown marks. Also, paper moths or silverfish have been nibbling on the note card. It is almost unreadable in its current form. Luckily, I transcribed it long ago. I keep the old, beaten-up card for sentimental reasons. The transcription can be found further below.

The recipe is titled “Hawaiian Banana Bread”. There is nothing particularly Hawaiian about the recipe—no pineapple or coconut, for example. It has the traditional banana bread ingredients of flour, sugar, baking soda, bananas, eggs and shortening, but the instructions are a little different than a typical banana bread recipe.  First, the liquid ingredients—eggs, butter or margarine, and ripe or over-ripe bananas—are to be turned into an emulsion in a blender. This makes the batter very smooth. And second, the batter is a little thinner and is poured into an 8x8 inch cake pan for baking instead of a bread pan. The end result is a super-moist, cake-like banana bread.

I seem to remember that Laurel called it Hawaiian Banana Bread because she got the recipe from someone in Hawaii while she and John were visiting there around 1990. But I may not be recalling that correctly.

Transcription of Laurel's recipe card

I occasionally add chopped nuts, or mini chocolate chips to the batter. This recipe is our favorite way to use up over-ripe bananas. It’s a sweet treat—both in flavor and as a reminder of a sweet lady.

Doctor, Missionary, Traveler: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Travel”

 

A True Journey-man: Life of a Medical Missionary

Dr. Lucius Ernest Smith: 1878-1955 (Maternal Granduncle)

 

Lucius Ernest Smith was a fearless traveler from a young age. He was barely out of his teens when he crossed the Appalachian Mountains in February of 1898, driving a six-horse team back to Kentucky from Asheville, North Carolina. He had only one of his much younger brothers along for company, and he was still dealing with his mother’s death from tuberculosis. After that trip, he was up for the challenges of homesteading in the Oklahoma Territory, working as a doctor in Puerto Rico, serving as a medical missionary in Africa, and traveling around the United States as a church speaker.

Lucius, known to his siblings as Ernest and in his professional life as L.E., was the third son born to Rev. Willis Smith and his first wife, Margaret Underwood Benton. He was born in Owensboro, Kentucky on October 6, 1878. L.E. was a hard worker from childhood, recalling in a news article that he hauled logs in the Green River/Ohio River area of Kentucky for several years, starting at age ten!

Green River area near its mouth at the Ohio River. Near where L.E. hauled logs. Still a heavily wooded area.

L.E.’s mother died on his twentieth birthday. To add to the trauma of his mother’s death from tuberculosis, L.E. was also diagnosed as having tuberculosis later that year. According to his obituary, he was told he had only a year to live. Obviously, his doctor was in error. The obituary went on to explain that “the doctor apparently did not know…that young Smith had come in early contact with the disease but had already overcome it without illness.”

However, the diagnosis probably led L.E. to delay planning for his future. He failed to follow his brothers to college, and he didn’t marry for many years. Instead, he chose to follow his father and some siblings to the Oklahoma Territory where his father was serving as a missionary. L.E. attempted to homestead in Guymon, Oklahoma at age 23, but had no success, telling a newspaper, “I guess I helped start the Dust Bowl.”

He gave up by 1907, moving back to Kentucky to help his brother, Rev. Albert Elias Smith, rebuild the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County, which had burned down. The school served poor rural children living in the Kentucky mountains, and Albert became its principal.

Working with the mountain families apparently inspired L.E. to become a doctor. He entered Kentucky State University around age thirty, graduating in 1911 at thirty-three. He continued his travels even then. He didn’t attend his graduation ceremony; he received his diploma while working in the Kansas wheatfields. The photo below shows him leaving Kansas, presumably headed for medical school.

He attended medical school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and spent his summers serving as the camp doctor at the YMCA camp in Becket, Massachusetts. He received his medical degree in 1915 at age 37. Rather than returning to Kentucky to practice medicine, he did his residency in Puerto Rico.

L.E. in Puerto Rico during his medical residency. Lorene Jandy photo.

In June 1916, he accepted a position as a medical missionary with the Presbyterian Church, traveling to West Africa during World War I. He was sent to the Benito Station in Spanish Guinea, a Presbyterian mission along the Benito River in what is now Equatorial Guinea. The Benito area is now known as Mbini.

L.E. remained at the mission until 1920, when he returned to Kentucky to marry a woman he had been corresponding with over the years, Beulah Lipps. They probably met in college. Before they married, she was a teacher in Lexington. Following their marriage, they returned to the Benito mission for another three years. Beulah developed a heart condition that forced them to return to the United States.

Lucius Ernest Smith, from Lorene Jandy's photos.

L.E. recalled his years in Africa to a Courier Journal reporter in 1951, stating that “he had records on 77,000 persons in Africa he had treated. He insisted that each patient do something for the services given him, if nothing more than cut weeds, wait on another patient, or contribute a monkey as a pet.”

His travels continued even after he returned from Africa. He brought back a “large collection of weird African curios and beautiful hand-colored lantern slides visualizing his strange experiences…as a medical missionary.” He used these in talks he would present around the country on behalf of the Presbyterian Church’s Foreign Mission department. He was a traveling speaker for over five years.

In 1931, L.E. took a position with the State of Kentucky as the executive secretary of the Kentucky Tuberculosis Association, holding the position for twenty years. His own experience with the disease made him a passionate advocate for prevention and treatment. He traveled all over the state as part of his job. His obituary included this description of his work:

“Dr. Smith worked unceasingly for chest X-ray programs for Kentuckians, often against early opposition from doctors who thought their province was being invaded. He was instrumental in getting new T.B. hospitals for Kentucky and in developing local T.B. associations.

He was known in practically every town in the state, where over the years he lectured and showed movies on tuberculosis. Many Kentuckians saw their first movies, before their communities had electricity, when Dr. Smith took a portable generator into remote areas and showed T.B. films.”

The obituary went on to note that the incidence of TB in Kentucky dropped from 94 per 100,000 residents to 33 per 100,000 during his tenure. His replacement as executive secretary called him “the most Christian man I ever met.”

L.E. died of heart disease on August 30, 1955, at the age of seventy-six. He and Beulah never had children, but he touched tens of thousands of lives during his career and travels. He lived his faith through service to others.  

Sources:

https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/archiveComponent/16835766

Guide to the L.E. Smith Papers. Smith, L. E. (Lucius Ernest), 1878-1955. Call No. RG 216. Inclusive Dates 1898-1959. Presbyterian Historical Society, 425 Lombard Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147-1516 USA. https://pcusa.org/historical-society/collections/research-tools/guides-archival-collections/rg-216

“Official of TB Group for 20 Years Retiring: Dr. L. E. Smith’s career Rugged”. The Courier Journal. Louisville, Kentucky. April 28, 1951. https://www.newspapers.com/image/110408202/?match=1&terms=l%20e%20smith

Photo of Painting of Dr. L.E.Smith. Courier Journal. Louisville, Kentucky. Apr. 24, 1953. https://www.newspapers.com/image/108460370/?match=1&terms=l%20e%20smith

“Dr. L.E.Smith, leader in fight to control Tuberculosis, Dies at 76.” . Courier Journal. Louisville, Kentucky. Aug. 31, 1955. https://www.newspapers.com/image/107954902/?match=1&terms=l%20e%20smith

 

Immigrant Life in Chicago: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Urban”

 

Ed Jandy’s Memories of Early Life in Chicago

Edward Jandesek/Jandy: 1899-1980 (Maternal Grandfather)

 

Many of our ancestors chose to settle in rural areas, often turning to farming for a career. But a few ancestor families chose to settle in urban areas. The Jandesek family immigrated to the United States in the 1880s and settled in Chicago. Years later, son Edward Jandesek wrote in his memoir about what he remembered of his childhood in the city.

Ed recalled that the family settled in a neighborhood called Old Pilsen. He said the neighborhood was predominantly comprised of Czech, Polish, German and Irish immigrants, mostly Catholics. His father, Emil, worked in a lumber mill as a millhand.

The Pilsen neighborhood in southwest side of Chicago

Here are some passages describing the Jandesek’s neighborhood and lives:

“Life in this neighborhood: strong family ties, most men skilled or unskilled workers; some owned stores and taverns; the latter sometimes occupied all four corners of street crossings. Beer was favorite national drink of Poles, Bohemians, and Irish.

Women of most families, and ours, worked as clerks, tailor maids, or office helpers. Brother Emil as lumber hand, George as skilled typesetter. Family unity, following European custom rather strong among all these ethnic 3 groups. Cleanliness in home and around it, a strong trait among Bohemians; streets clean.

One block north of our house, at Throup and Sixteenth Streets, railroad tracks of Chicago, Northwestern. Burlington, and Northern and a freight yard where cars were sorted for long trips. We boys included this area in our playgrounds; we hitched freight car rides, collected coal and wood for home stove fuel, watched trains fly by.

Photo of street where the Jandeseks lived. Circa 1920.

The streets and empty lots were all play areas for roller skating, tag, baseball, hide and go seek, even making winter fires on holidays. City-managed playgrounds one-half mile away: Chicago River 11/2 miles to south, where we swam as boys in its canals and dived off high lumber piles, often into oily water. A number of boys drowned here. We all swam naked. Inter-neighborhood gang fights over “territorial rights;” none too serious.

Our school was only two blocks away from our house; parochial- schools near also. Most kids went through 8th grade; dropouts before age 14 were frequent due to poverty in home. Few aspired to go to high school and very, very few to college. I then never entertained idea of high school and dropped out at end of 8th grade to go to work like most boys. In my peer groups (boys and girls) I always seemed to have numerous friends, some capacity for leadership, and was confident of some of these.”

Chicago was home to a large number of Czechs by the late 1800s into the 1900s. According to an article about Pilsen on the Chicago Curbed website, “the rapidly growing metropolis’ Czech population… ranked third in the world—behind only Prague and Vienna.” (Cit. 3)

Postcard of Blue Island and 18th, near where the Jandeseks lived. Photo Circa 1915, with title in Czech at the top reading "Czech businesses in Chicago".

I suspect that Emil Jandesek worked at the Pilsen Yards, a huge lumber yard near the train tracks.  According to the History of Pilsen article cited below,  following the Chicago Fire, “rapid reconstruction throughout Chicago accelerated the growth of several industries, including lumber. The Pilsen Yards, at today’s 22nd Street and Blue Island, became the largest lumber distribution center in the world.” (Cit. 2)

There are two possibilities for the school Ed and his siblings attended. Since they lived at Throop and 18^th, two blocks south at Throop and 20^th was the Komensky School, built at the end of the 19^th century. The building still stands today.

Map showing location of Komensky and Jinka schools, with location of Jandesek apartment in the middle.

The other possibility was the Jinka School, also built in the late 1890s, which stood at Loomis and 17^th, one block north and one block west of the Jandesek apartment. They were large, multi-story brick buildings.

Komensky School at top, Jinka School at bottom.

Ed would have followed his family members into blue collar work if not for the influence of a community center or “settlement house” called Howell House. Chicago was the home to several settlement missions, which served various immigrant communities. Howell House and Bethlehem Center were located in Pilsen.

“Bethlehem Center and Howell House were church-related neighborhood houses serving the Pilsen area on the Near West Side. They provided religious, social services, and personal welfare assistance to an immigrant community composed predominantly of Bohemians, Poles, and Czechs.” (Cit. 4)

Photo of Howell House on the cover of a 1905 scrapbook.

“The Women's Presbyterial Society established Howell Neighborhood House for Home Missions, otherwise known as the "Bohemian Settlement House" in 1905. The mission's first initiative in the "Little Pilsen" neighborhood was a kindergarten in a small building on the corner of Nineteenth Place and May Street. "To stand on the corner of Blue Island Avenue and 18th Street [in those days]," Gertrude Ray later wrote, "was to stand in the heart of a Czech city with a population second only to Prague." 

18th and Blue Island in 1909

"The house expanded rapidly and by 1914, the board of management had created, among others, Boys and Girls Clubs, a Sunday school, a library, and an English Night School. C.D.B. Howell, for whom the settlement house was later renamed in 1919, taught Sunday school and brought in other teachers from the neighborhood in these formative years. Additionally, Howell led a fund-raising drive in 1913 that raised money for construction of a larger settlement building at 1831 South Center Street (now Racine).”(Cit. 4)

Howell House seen over the Pilsen rooftops. Circa 1915.

Ed described the effect of Howell House on his life in his memoir:

“Somehow, between 16 and 18, through a friend, drifted into Howell Neighborhood House, 1/2 mile from our home, attended nights more and more regularly. Personnel of House: men leaders who were attending Y.M.C.A. colleges, the University of Chicago, or church seminaries. Emphasized clean speech, clean habits, clean sports; these a motto. There was a gymnasium. I never took to its sports. There were various clubs tor social affairs, discussion, and debating. Also Church services Sunday, Presbyterian, which I regularly attended, as well as a mid week club.

A knitting class for girls and a basket-weaving class for boys at Howell House, circa

 1915.

Ed went on to write:

“I know of no other institution or leaders that made a greater impact on my personality development than Howell House. Here some of us picked up high aspirations and ideals that shaped our entire lives one way or another, even though we came to realize this in subsequent years. For various reasons, a few of us boys, the objects of special attention and solicitude of House staff; the Head, Miss Ray, Dr. Rowell, the minister, later a professor of English at University of California, and Rev. Olson, his successor. When I was about 19 years old I was selected to be an elder at Howell Neighborhood House Presbyterian Church, for reasons I ill understood then. Also, it was about this time the staff began to think about our finishing in high school and then going to college. Nothing could seem wilder than this at that stage of our lives, mine especially; but the ideal was sown in us and it was steadily nurtured and took.”

Civics class for Bohemians (like Ed and his family). Preparing the men to for naturalization. 1913.

Ed faced a difficult choice at such a young age. His father had died, and Ed and his older brother George had been supporting their mother, Emily. He wrote:

“I was the youngest of nine in our family; none of my brothers and sisters went beyond the 6th grade; each earned about $12 to $20 per week. World War I just ended short time before. My sister Rose, youngest of girls, married John Eppers after War; brother George returned; he was gassed in front lines in France, recovered, and planned to marry. This meant Eddie (me!) would soon have to support his mother at $15 per week.”

Ed would have had to forego his college dreams if his brother George hadn’t stepped up. He offered to have their mother live with him and his new wife, freeing Ed to quit his job and attend college. Ed traded his urban life for a more rural one at Blackburn College.

Ed’s memoir offered fascinating glimpses into the lives of immigrant families in large urban areas like Chicago.  Ed also showed the amazing impact of “settlement houses” in helping these families adjust to American life and build productive futures.

Sources:

1.       https://www.wttw.com/sites/default/files/pilsen_map_1929.jpg

2.       “History of Pilsen”. Jessica Pupovac. WTTW Television. https://www.wttw.com/my-neighborhood/pilsen/history

3.       https://chicago.curbed.com/2019/6/14/18677823/pilsen-historic-district-czech-sokols-preservation

4.       Bethlehem Howell Neighborhood Center collection, 1894-1969. Seven Settlement Houses-Database of Photos (University of Illinois at Chicago), University of Illinois at Chicago. Library. Special Collections and University Archiveshttps://explore.chicagocollections.org/ead/uic/25/wk50/

Animals as Assets: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Animals”

William Weir’s Will and Livestock as Significant Assets

William Weir: 1751-1787 (Maternal Fourth Great-Grandfather)
Samuel Miller Weir: 1769-1830 (Maternal Third Great-Grandfather)

 

I am always fascinated with wills and probate records when I discover them. They can provide amazing and important details about the lives of ancestors and the things that were important to them. Animals are often mentioned in wills, especially in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century wills. In that era, animals were significant assets—not just in terms of their financial value, but also in terms of their being a means of survival as they were sources of food and labor. The distribution of these assets was critically important to heirs. The will of William Weir includes reference to a variety of animals, which were distributed among his children and his widow, including the animals given to my husband’s third-great-grandfather, Samuel Miller Weir.

William Weir was an Irish immigrant who settled in the area of Fishing Creek in Chester County, South Carolina. He fought in the Revolutionary War, and he and his wife, Susannah Miller Weir, had three sons and seven daughters over two decades. It is believed that William Weir was born in 1751, which meant that his first son, William, was born when he was only sixteen. It also would mean that William was only thirty-six years old at his death. (Note: I have found no verification of his birthdate, so I suspect he may actually have been older.) He died in 1787.

Plat map of Fishing Creek SC circa 1800, with Weir properties marked in red

William’s will opens with him stating that he was “Very Sick and Weak in Body but of Perfect Mind and Memory”, so obviously he had some serious illness and was aware he was unlikely to recover. Despite the severity of his condition, he set out a very precise, detailed distribution of his assets.

The significant sections read as follows:

“First I do give to My Well Beloved Son William Weer one Bay Mare and two Cows Which he is in Possession of.

Next I do give to My Well Beloved Daughter Elizabeth Weer her Bead & furniture With three head of cows Which is in My Son William's Care with her Saddel.

Next I do give My Well Beloved Son Samuel Weer three hundred acres of Land Which is lying & being on the Waters of Tager River & the Dunn horse and out of the above Lands he is to pay the Sum of twenty pounds into the hands of the Executors of this present Will.

Next I do give to My Well beloved Wife Susena her bed and furniture With an Equal part of the following property which is to be Equally Divided between My Said Wife and My Son James and My Daughters Susana, Augnas, Margaret, Janet, and Ann Which is to consist of the Plantation Where I Now Live with the Live Stock of horses, Cows, Hogs & Household furniture With My Plantation tools and What Moneys May be Due me and the twenty pounds Which is to be paid by My Son Samuel and all the above is to be Equaly Divided Amongest the persons above Directed after they pay all My Debts out of the whole Sum…”

As we can see, he provides each of his heirs with animals. His eldest son William receives a “Bay Mare” and two cows. Daughter Elizabeth receives “three head of cows” and a saddle, so presumably she already had a horse. My husband’s ancestor, Samuel Weir, received a “Dunn horse” along with three hundred acres of land.

Transcription of William Weir will...

The remaining assets were to be divided amongst William’s wife Susanna and the younger children—James, Susanna, Agnes, Margaret, Janet and Ann. The assets included “the Live Stock of horses, Cows, Hogs…”

So from this will, we can deduce that William Weir had a plantation comprising buildings, land, crops and livestock. The livestock included several horses, a herd of cattle, and hogs. He made sure that all his heirs received some of the livestock, helping to set them up to survive in South Carolina. The cattle would have provided milk, and the cattle and hogs provided meat. Horses were work animals, critical for pulling farm equipment to enable planting and harvesting of crops as well as providing a means of transportation. In addition, any or all the livestock could be sold to get money if necessary. William and others of his generation saw animals as essential means to build security and wealth in a new nation.

 

Sources:

South Carolina Will Transcripts, 1782-1868; Author: Wates, Wylma Anne; Probate Place: Chester, South Carolina. Ancestry.com.

https://www.rootsandrecall.com/chester/buildings/greater-fishing-creek-heritage-plat-map/

A Mother Faces Desperate Times: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Off to Work”

 

Maude Smith Douthitt Enters Work World Following Divorce and Non-Payment of Child Support

Maude Underwood Smith: 1881-1967 (Maternal Grandaunt)
 

I was recently reading my grandmother-in-law Lorene Smith Jandy’s memoir, and found an interesting passage on her half-sister Maude:

“The fifth child and second daughter was Maude Underwood. She married Walter Douthitt

in the Owensboro vicinity and he too became an alcoholic. They had three children--Grace,

Madge, and James Bryant…. A friend notified my father that with Walter's drinking, Maud and the children were near starvation and that she must get a divorce. My father strongly disapproved of divorce but consented in order to save their family.”

Maude and Lorene’s father was Rev. Willis Smith, a devout minister and missionary, so he was a fierce proponent of the sanctity of marriage. If he lent his support to Maude seeking a divorce, her situation must have been dire. I decided to do more research on Maude’s life. I discovered that she became a working mother in an era when that was much more difficult than now.

 

Maude Smith Douthitt in 1915

Maude Underwood Smith was born in June 1881. I do not have the exact date of her birth as I have been unable to find a birth record. Most of the census records list her birth year as between 1883 and 1885—I suspect she was shaving a few years off her age as many people do. I relied upon the 1900 census when she was only nine years old, and which asked for the month and year of each household member’s birth. Since her parents provided the information, I feel it is the most likely to be accurate.

Maude’s mother was Rev. Smith’s first wife, Margaret “Molly” Underwood Benton. Underwood was the maiden name of Margaret’s mother, and was used as Maude’s middle name as well. Maude was the fifth of Willis and Molly’s eleven children.

Maude grew up in the Owensboro area of Kentucky. Her mother died when she was seventeen, and Rev. Smith remarried a year later in 1899. Just a few months later, Maude married a local man, James Walter Douthitt, on March 17, 1900, with her father performing the ceremony in the family home. She was eighteen years old, and her husband was twenty-one. The newspaper write-up of their wedding made their union sound promising, stating:

“Mr. Douthitt is a teacher who has achieved success in the common schools of Daviess County, is a young man of most excellent character, and popular wherever known. The bride is pretty and accomplished, and has many friends in Owensboro and Daviess County.”

Rev. Smith moved to the Oklahoma Territory later in 1900, taking many of Maude’s siblings with him. The newlyweds moved in with James’ parents on a farm in Daviess County, and,  according to the 1900 census records, James gave up teaching for farming.

Maude and James had two daughters in the first two years of their marriage. Madge Lorene was born January 8, 1901, and Grace Bernadene was born February 26, 1902. They added a son, James Bryan, to the family on October 1, 1908.

By this point, the marriage may have already been breaking down. I cannot find the family on the 1910 census. Lorene, Maude’s sister, recalled that Maude and James had moved to Indiana, but I have found no evidence of this.

In March 1912, Maude filed for divorce. Divorce was big news in that era due to its rarity, so the case was covered by the local newspapers. The Owensboro Messenger wrote:

“It is stated that the parties were married in Daviess County, March 10, 1900, and have lived together until recently, when because of the intemperate habits of the defendant the plaintiff was forced to abandon him; That for a long time he had failed and refused to provide clothing and food for their three children and herself. Plaintiff states that the defendant is a young man, aged thirty-three, able-bodied and well-educated and amply able to provide for his family. She prays for temporary alimony during the pendency of the suit in the sum of $25 per month, and suitable provisions after final decree.”

Maude must have felt so desperate and humiliated to be forced to air her problems before the entire community. How had she been providing for her children in the previous months? Had she been forced to beg for food from her in-laws and her siblings who still lived in the area?

The judge did grant temporary alimony as the divorce case dragged on, but Maude was forced to return to court to beg that the order be enforced, as Walter was failing to make the ordered payments.

The divorce was finalized on September 13, 1912. The newspaper reported that Maude was “awarded the custody of her three infant children. It was also adjudged that Douthitt was guilty of contempt of court by not complying with the orders of the court in paying temporary alimony heretofore adjudged against him. Judge Birkhead ordered his immediate arrest with instructions that he be placed in the Daviess County jail and there kept until he has paid Mrs. Douthitt the sum of $15 per month from April 1, 1912…Mrs. Douthitt was also given judgment for $500 permanent alimony.”

It is unclear whether Walter Douthitt ever met his obligations to his wife or children. Maude next appears in the newspaper attempting to rent the downstairs rooms of her house in Owensboro to boarders for the sum of $4.00 per week.

This attempt to support her children was apparently unsuccessful. A 1915 news article on the Smith family having a family reunion stated that Maude and her children were living in the Appalachian foothill community of Paintsville with her brother Eldred. They left Paintsville shortly after the reunion. Lorene Smith Jandy’s memoir reported that:

“My brothers Eldred and Charlie, both still single, took Maud and her three children under their care and returned to Melrose, New Mexico, to try again to make it. Like so many others, our family had had to leave their homestead there because of prolonged drought. The homes could not be sold and all had to be deserted. Apparently this second attempt to farm in Melrose also fizzled, and Maud had to keep moving, eventually ending up in Denver, where she and the children found more security.”

Lorene is referring to the period her father was living in the New Mexico Territory. At least three of his sons, Eldred, Charlie and Ernest, attempted to homestead there sometime before 1910. Eldred and Charlie returned with Maude and children around 1915. When their brother Frampton died suddenly in 1916, his obituary notes that Maude, Eldred and Charlie traveled from their homes in Melrose, New Mexico.

 Postcard of Melrose, New Mexico from about 1910

Maude’s son Jim Douthitt recalled his time in New Mexico in a letter to Lorene Smith Jandy. The drought had returned, and their homestead attempts were overtaken by duststorms:

“"I surely do remember our stay at Melrose, including fences completely buried in sand blown against tumbleweeds, rattlesnakes and jackrabbits! In Clovis we lived over a movie [house], and I remember a picture of Charlie Chaplin and under it 'Ishkabibble, I should worry.'

 From Jim’s account, it appears that Maude and children had moved from Melrose to the larger town of Clovis. There were probably few opportunities for employment for Maude in Clovis, so she moved again, heading 450 miles north to Denver, Colorado. The 1920 census shows them living in Denver. Maude, 37, is employed as a “forelady” in a candy store, while her daughters Madge and Grace, 19 and 17, were working as stenographers.

Vintage candy tin from early years of Brecht's in Denver where Maude worked

James, who was eleven in 1920, recalled, “[I]n Denver mother worked for a candy factory, Brecht's at first, then much later at Stauffer's. Then she worked at their (the Stauffer family’s) home, taking care of their daughter and 2 nieces. When I went to seminary in 1930, she moved with them to Chicago, and then to Kansas City.” The 1930 census corresponds to Jim’s memory, showing Maude living in a rooming house in Denver and working as a housekeeper.

While she may have worked for the Stauffer family out of state around 1930, by 1933 Maude had returned to Colorado, where she married the owner of a painting business, Luther A. Keigley. Maude was 51, as was Luther. After years of struggle and manual labor, Maude was able to return to keeping her own home and supporting her husband.

Maude’s daughter Grace moved to California in the 1920s where she worked as a secretary. Perhaps that influenced Maude and Luther to relocate there as well. They first settled in Red Bluff along the Sacramento River in northern California, appearing on the 1940 census; Luther stated he was a merchant with his own business.

Vintage postcard of Lake Elsinore, about 1950.

A few years later, the Keigleys retired, moving to Lake Elsinore, California. They appear in the society columns in their local paper, hosting Maude’s daughter, Grace, and her son James, now a minister, and his wife and children. They also visited Maude’s brother and his wife in San Bernardino County.

Sadly, Luther had little time to enjoy retirement. He died June 22, 1946. However, Maude continued to live in Lake Elsinore, enjoying visits from her children and relatives until her death at age 86. She died in the city of Orange, on the coastal side of the mountains (Lake Elsinore is on the opposite side of the Santa Ana range).

 

Maude’s life shows how women in the early 1900s could be left in serious financial straits if they were widowed or divorced. Maude went to work to support her children, moving from place to place and job to job until her children were grown. While she probably could have relied upon the support of some of her siblings to survive, she chose to go out on her own and achieve independence. She kept her family together, and raised her children to be successful, self-supporting adults. Maude’s work ethic and dedication on the job were obvious from her achieving the position of “forelady” at the candy manufacturer, and her employers’ subsequent decision to employ her as their housekeeper and nanny. Maude earned the security she found in her second marriage and retirement.

 

Sources:

“Maude Douthitt Granted Absolute Divorce”. Owensboro Messenger Inquirer. Owensboro, KY. Sep. 13, 1912. Accessed on Newspapers.com.

“Divorce Is Asked.” Owensboro Messenger. Owensboro, KY. Mar. 21, 1912. Accessed on Newspapers.com.

“Maude Douthitt Granted Alimony.”  Owensboro Messenger Inquirer. Owensboro, KY. Sep. 13, 1912. Accessed on Newspapers.com.

James Frampton Smith Obituary. Owensboro Messenger. Owensboro, KY. Jan. 25, 1916. Accessed on Newspapers.com.

Room Rental advertisement. Owensboro Messenger Inquirer. Owensboro, KY. Nov. 19, 1913. Accessed on Newspapers.com.

“Big Reunion”. Owensboro Messenger Inquirer. Owensboro, KY. Jun. 18, 1915. Accessed on Newspapers.com.

Dr. Willis Smith entertains Keigleys. San Bernardino County Sun. San Bernardino, CA. Jun. 23, 1946. Accessed on Newspapers.com.

“Children Visit Mrs. Keigley.” Lake Elsinore Sun Tribune. Lake Elsinore, CA. May 15, 1952. Accessed on Newspapers.com.

Family photos and memoir of Lorene Smith Jandy.

L.E.Smith in the Archives: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “In the Library”

 

Lucius Ernest Smith’s Papers and Photographs: Held in the Presbyterian Church Historical Society’s Archives

Dr. Lucius Ernest Smith: 1878-1955 (Maternal Granduncle)

I was thrilled to discover that Lucius Ernest Smith’s papers, including family photos and correspondence, have been preserved in the archives of the Presbyterian Church’s Historical Society in Philadelphia. I now have a reason to visit Philadelphia!

So who was Lucius, and why were his papers important enough to be preserved by the Presbyterian Church?

Lucius, known to his siblings as Ernest, was Rev. Willis Smith’s third son. He was born in Owensboro, Kentucky on October 6, 1878. In an earlier blog post, I wrote about his adventure driving a six-horse team back to Kentucky from Ashville, North Carolina after his mother’s death from tuberculosis. He crossed the Appalachians in February--a fool-hardy but brave endeavor.

He followed his father and some siblings to the Oklahoma Territory where Willis served as a missionary. Ernest apparently tried to homestead in Oklahoma, but ended up returning to Kentucky to assist his brother, who was a teaching missionary in the mountains. He completed college at age thirty-three and then entered Johns Hopkins Medical School, graduating as an MD at age thirty-seven.

He served as a medical missionary in Africa for six years under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church, He served as a lecturer and fundraiser for the church for a few years after he returned to the United States from Spanish Guinea (now known as Equatorial Guinea).

Due to his service to the church, the Presbyterian Historical Society was a logical place to donate his papers and records. There are seven boxes of materials, and the collection includes some of his diaries. Ernest kept a diary during his wagon journey from North Carolina. I would love to discover whether that particular diary is in one of those boxes.

The materials held in the Presbyterian archives would all be fascinating, and would provide amazing details about Ernest’s incredible life. I will write a more comprehensive biographical sketch about Ernest in a future blog post.

Sources:  

https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/archiveComponent/16835766

Guide to the L.E. Smith Papers. Smith, L. E. (Lucius Ernest), 1878-1955. Call No. RG 216. Inclusive Dates 1898-1959. Presbyterian Historical Society, 425 Lombard Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147-1516 USA. https://pcusa.org/historical-society/collections/research-tools/guides-archival-collections/rg-216

Edward Jandy’s Academic Articles on JSTOR: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “At the Library”

 

Research, Reviews and Citations: Learning about Dr. Jandy’s Research from Library Sources

Dr. Edward Jandy: 1899-1980 (Maternal Grandfather)

 

I have already written one post about Edward Jandy’s PhD dissertation and book on the life and work of sociologist Charles Horton Cooley. However, Dr. Jandy continued to research and publish during his long career as a professor at Wayne State University in Michigan. I decided it was time to look for some of his publications in online library resources. I hoped to get a clearer picture of his research interests.

Dr. Edward Jandy

Some of Dr. Jandy’s earliest research had to do with inner city drug addiction in Detroit, and its connection to crime. Dr. Jandy and a psychologist at the Detroit House of Correction, designed the study, interviewed criminals and wrote up their conclusions in a paper titled “Narcotic Addiction as a Factor in Petty Larceny in Detroit”. It was published November, 1937 by the Detroit Bureau of Governmental Research. The paper found a strong correlation between addiction and crime, and recommended treatment for the addiction as a way to lower the rate of recidivism.

By the 1940s, Dr. Jandy was hosting a weekly radio program in Detroit on “Post-War Problems”. He served as moderator of various panels of experts, according to the News And Notes Section of The American Journal of Sociology, 1943.

Dr. Jandy was appointed the Director of Welfare for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration Mission to Ethiopia in 1946, and he returned to the country in 1950 as an attache and Public Affairs Officer to the American Embassy in Addis Adabe, serving until 1953. Some of his articles deal with his experiences in Ethiopia and his assessment of the country and its people. In addition I have found reference to a book he wrote entitled Changing Land Tenure Practice and Land Taxation in Ethiopia, published in 1963.

Most of Dr. Jandy’s other publications were book reviews of various books, including a couple of general sociology textbooks. The subject matter of the other books included opiate addiction, maximum security prisons, and juvenile crime, showing that he continued his study of the causes of criminal behavior.

I hope to read Dr. Jandy’s memoir to learn more about his research interests and teaching career.

Sources:

Jandy, Edward C. “Ethiopia Today: A Review of Its Changes and Problems.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 306, 1956, pp. 106–16. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1030740. Accessed 18 June 2025.

Jandy, Edward C. and Floch, Maurice. “Narcotic Addiction as a Factor in Petty Larceny in Detroit”. November, 1937. Detroit Bureau of Governmental Research. School of Public Affairs and Social Work of Wayne University, Report No. 9.

Jandy, Edward C., Review of Opiate Addiction. Social Science, Vol. 24, No. 2 (April 1949), pp. 124-125.

Jandy, Edward C. Review of  The Society for Captives: A Study of A Maximum Security Prison. Social Science, Vol. 34, No. 4 (OCTOBER, 1959), pp. 253-254.

Jandy, Edward C. Review of  Delinquency, The Juvenile Offender in America Today. Social Science, Vol. 32, No. 3 (JUNE, 1957), pp. 190-191.

Jandy, Edward C. Review of Sociology: Analysis of a Decade. Social Science, Vol. 34, No. 1 (JANUARY, 1959), pp. 55-56.