Stay-cation Happenings

Even though the holidays are fast approaching, I couldn’t resist working on some of my current pet projects.  Earlier in the month I had attempted to finish making the booths for my diner.  Kath Dalmeny’s book says to affix the booth fabric to the backside of the seats and backs with double-sided tape.  I’ve never used this type of tape, so I bought some and tried it out.  At first, everything seemed to work out great with it.  It held the fabric nicely to the foam core board, but then gravity or physics came into play and the tape wouldn’t hold the fabric in place for an indefinite period of time.  I wasn’t sure if the double-sided tape was only supposed to hold the fabric in place until the backs and seat pieces were glued to the booths.  Perhaps in the U.K. double-sided tape works better keeping things in place than on this side of the pond?  This setback frustrated me, but instead of completely getting bummed out, I decided to think up another way to affix the fabric to back side of the foam core pieces. 

I talked to my husband about my problems with the double-sided tape and he suggested using staples to hold it in place.  This idea seemed like a possible solution, but I wanted to think about it thoroughly before going forward.  I decided to work on other parts of the diner while I considered the staples solution. 

Tile flooring paper

Based on the directions it appeared that I would need to glue the booths and other furniture to the floor.  This meant that I would need a floor to glue these items to.  Years ago I had bought some great tile flooring paper at my favorite and now defunct miniatures store Once Upon A Time. 

Floor pattern on top of mat board

I had made a pattern for the floor awhile ago out of my usual contact paper and brown wrapping paper.  I found a piece of mat board that I used as the base and cut this to the size of my floor pattern.  The flooring paper I had was this wonderful design of red and light yellow squares and triangles with a border around it.  I wanted to implement the border onto the diner’s floor. 

Tile flooring paper glued to mat board base

I decided to cut part of the flooring sheet to match up with the right-angled section of the floor’s pattern.  I then cut away the border from the remainder of the sheet to glue down on top of the borderless sections of the part I had cut.  The tricky part was the angled portion of the floor that would be in front of the door.  The gluing went better than I had anticipated.  Next was to cover with varnish.  I didn’t have much glossy varnish left and wasn’t sure if a glossy floor would work for this project, so I used a matte varnish instead.  The flooring paper had been glued to the mat board base and had dried thoroughly, but I had some minor bubbling of the paper.  The areas where I had glued the border to the paper bubbled some too, but this I expected.  After the first varnish coat dried, the bubbles had strangely disappeared just as they had surprisingly appeared in the first place.  I painted on another varnish coat and some bubbles appeared again but this time they mainly stayed on the glued border pieces.  Once the varnish dried, the bubbles disappeared again.  Unfortunately my floor was also horribly warped by this time too.  There was no way that I could glue it to the MDF base of my diner, so I weighted it down with books to try and flatten it out.

Tile floor with borders glued in place

I waited a couple of days before lifting the weights off my floor and found that it wasn’t as curled, thankfully.  I squeezed a bead of glue all over the unpainted part of the MDF where the floor would go and spread the glue into a thin layer with a plastic card.  I placed the floor onto the glue, covered with waxed paper and then weighted it down with books. 

While waiting for the glue to dry, I took another look at my diner to see what else I needed to deal with before gluing everything down.  Since I would be gluing the furniture to the floor, I’d obviously need to have the walls glued to the base as well so that if necessary I could glue furniture pieces to the diner’s walls.  I hadn’t painted the inside of the diner’s door yet.  The mirror pieces were still attached to the wall with Scotch tape and the other door that I plan to install behind the counter needs to be made and glued in place. 

Painting interior side of door

I painted the inside of the door a nice brown color.  While painting it I noticed a small area of the outside of the door that needed to be touched up.  I went through my paints, but discovered that I had created a unique maroon color for the door’s exterior.  This I mixed up and applied.  I had tried to minimize paint on other parts of the interior by putting strips of masking tape around the front door, but this didn’t completely eliminate paint from getting in unwanted places.  Clean up was quick and fairly easy by using a Q-tip and water on the affected areas. Once the paint was dry, I glued on doorknobs on the exterior and interior sides of the door. 

Next on my list was to apply the silver cardboard to the edges of the counter and tables.  However, I learned that the silver cardboard I had wasn’t long enough for me to cut into strips to be glued around the tables and counter.  I found a larger size piece of cardboard from a cereal box that I used instead.  I already had metallic silver model paint to use.  Based on the warnings on the instructions, I opened windows and turned on my exhaust fan to try to lessen the fumes.  The paint looked great, but I didn’t enjoy working with it because of the smell.  The fumes weren’t so bad if you weren’t up next to the items painting them.  The effect was definitely worth the fumes and having open windows in December.  Perhaps if fumes are something that really bother you, work with this type of paint in the summer when it’s not so uncomfortable having windows open. 

The next step was to glue decorative paper to the front side of the counter.  Again, I spread a Tacky glue into a thin layer and then placed the piece of decorative paper that I’d cut to the approximate size onto the glue.  Using a plastic card, I smoothed the paper down onto the glue-covered cardboard. 

I removed the mirrors that I had taped to the walls of the diner.  I plan to glue them to the walls later and hopefully can come up with a way to have the mirrors stretch across the entire length of the wall.  The mirrors had been up so long that the tape left behind a sticky residue that I tried to remove with Q-tips dipped in water.  This did remove some of the sticky residue, but also removed some of the paint as well.  When the areas dried out, I painted over the affected areas and the wall looks pretty much back to normal.

 

I kept thinking about another remedy to the attaching the fabric to the backside of the booth backs and seats and never came up with any better idea than to use staples.  My husband happened to have some small staples that he agreed to use for the project.  I had measured the depth of the staple’s arms and knew that I would need to trim some length from the arms.  I gathered everything I thought I would need and decided to work with just one of the booth seats to see how it worked out.  I put on safety goggles, since you never know, and I’m not interested in getting small bits of metal stuck in my eye.  I used the cutting part of a pair of needle nose pliers to trim a bit off the staple’s arms and then pressed it into the fabric and then into the foam core board.  Surprisingly, I discovered that this was the solution to my problem.

After stapling all of the fabric to the back side of the booth seats and backs, I set up the booths with the counter in the diner and took photos to test out what the overall effect would be.

I worked on my project more over the Christmas holiday and will post about those happenings soon. 

Albert Womble Papers

When I visited my parents this past September I went through a box of Womble family memorabilia.  Amongst the odds and ends of various items was a collection of items that I believe belonged to my great grandfather Albert Womble.

I had gone through some of these things before and even made photocopies of them too.  However, on this visit I wanted to take some of Albert’s paper home with me.  I sent aside the items and then asked my parents if I could take them with me.  They agreed to let me take them.

Last month I finally had the time to go through them and try to document my findings as I went.  I didn’t get through all of them because I found it to be a tedious process going through the papers, photographing it, and then writing about it.  It is a start though, and my advice to anyone who attempts this is to have patience and to realize that it’s a slow process. 

Some of the items I took were small pocket-sized memorandum notebooks.   One of these was simply titled Receipt and has written on a page B. I. Complex.  There is a list of tablets and the cost.  My assumption is that Albert was taking B1 complex pills and was trying to calculate the cost of different sized tablets and perhaps which sized tablet would cost the least over a period of time.  Today, I think of B1 complex vitamins as being pretty normal.  I don’t know that much about what certain vitamins are supposed to do, but I’m sure that in the past it was a new fangled thing.  I’ve heard stories that Albert didn’t have much money and so he didn’t eat very nutritious food. 

A single page was found and it looked as though it was torn from a notebook.  Strange phrases are written on this.  I assume that these are song titles.

They’re as follows:

My little Becck a roo

Wagin Westward   [not sure if this should be Wagon Westward]

I can’t give you anything but love

% for 2

Manhatin Seranade [sic]

My blue heaven

Molly and the baby

A letter to Albert Womble from his brother Thomas.  Inside the letter folded up was a listing of radio programs for Thurs. Dec. 30.  I’m not sure of the year, but it must be during WWII because there are some war programs.  It may be from the Knoxville News-Sentinel because it makes reference to the News-Sentinel magazine and there’s a station that has the call letters WNOX.  I think WNOX is a Knoxville radio station.  The backside of the clipping makes reference to that city in various ads.  The year might be 1942 because of the used car ad next to a bunch of Help Wanted ads.  My reasoning is that the ad is pushing ’39, ’40, and ’41 cars.  If these cars are used than the year probably isn’t 1938 or ’43 because it would have ’42 cars listed.  The letter isn’t dated and is very short.  Apparently Thomas Womble suffered from blood poisoning in the past and was very sick.  This might explain previous addresses I’ve seen for him addressed to a hospital in California.  In the letter Tom tells his brother that he’s feeling better and he seems to offer Albert help of he ever is sick or needs money.

There was a folded up article about the death of his oldest son, Joseph who died during an indoor baseball game at the Centralia YMCA.  I had the impression that Albert may have carried that article with him everywhere.

In a partial envelope is a receipt dated 2 June 1941.  It says, received from A. Womble Eight and no dollars June 2 to July 2 $8.00 Mrs. J.P. Welsh.  On the back of this receipt is written: 

6-2. to 7-2-41.

7-2 to 8-2. - 41. –

Mrs. Welsh $8.00. 

8-2 to 9-2 $6.00

Mrs. Welsh

9-2 to 10-2. 6.00

Mrs. Welsh

To me this looks like Albert Womble is paying rent to someone named Mrs. Welsh.  Maybe it's for 303 Madison in Paducah, Kentucky. 

I did some research on Mrs. Welsh and found a listing in the 1941 Paducah City Directory for a Jas. P Welch.  He's living at 323 Madison and his wife's name is Luna.  He is a harness-maker at Ferguson Co.  There is also a listing for a Louisa Welch living a 303 Madison who furnishes rooms.  I think this means that they rent out rooms. These are listed on page 629 of the 1941 Paducah, KY city directory.

In the 1937 Paducah City Directory, Albert Womble is living at 303 Madison and working for the Ferguson Co.  The name J.P. Welsh is written in the address section of one of Albert Womble's memorandum books.  I think these Welch/Welsh people are the same that are mentioned in Albert Womble’s papers.

Torn corner of paper, written in what appears to be my grandmother's handwriting about John Womble and his Rev. War service and some things about his life.  I think this was written after Albert died because it looks like it's written with a ballpoint pen.  In the brief biographical sketch about John Womble it says that her was born in 1756 in NC and died in Edgecombe County, NC in Oct. 1820.  He was married twice and he married and he married his 2nd wife Catherine in 1798.  One of their 11 children according to this was named John Winfield who was Albert's dad.  John Womble had another son named John with his first wife in 1788.  He received a pension from the war and two land grants.

Handmade leather wallet or case that is held together with masking tape.  On the masking tape is written in what looks like my grandmother's handwriting it says Notes and Records of Albert Womble son of John Winfield Womble of Nashville and Hardin Co.  John Winfield Womble was the 12th child of John Womble-Rev. War soldier in N. Carolina who fought [?] at the siege of Savannah & Charleston, captured at Charleston & sent to prison of British after war.  Enlisted in Spring of about 1778-1779.

 Inside wallet is a notebook made of leather that looks handmade.  Notebook seems to contain some sort of Union joining ceremony and bylaws.  Also information about harness making and the construction of other similar leather made devices.

I think that the wallet case and torn corner of paper are the source for Winfield being the mistaken middle name for my great-great grandfather.  Since the handwriting appears to be that of my grandmother, Virginia, I believe that she may be the source of this misinformation.  I’ve seen this mistake in other papers that I’ve gotten from some relatives and my only guess is that they got this wrong information from her.  I’ve never seen anything directly from my great grandfather, Albert, which gives his father’s middle name as Winfield.  It’s always Washington, which is correct. 

My grandmother seemed to know a lot about her dad’s family, but I’m not sure if this is because she was interested in it or had just heard about it from her dad.  Her father, Albert seems somewhat interested in his heritage because I saw something written in one of his notepads about having an ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War.  Maybe he had only heard about it from his sister, Maude, but otherwise wasn’t too interested in it much.  Perhaps he actually had more pressing things to think about other than genealogy?  Such as basic survival in the world, I got the impression that Albert Womble didn’t have much money and at times, or quite possibly his lack of funds was a frequent occurrence.  Based on one letter I read when I was visiting my parents, his son Ben mentions sending his dad a money order so that he can pay a pharmacy bill.  From the tone, it sounds as if Albert’s children often send money to their dad to help him make ends meet. 

My experience has shown me that children sometimes tend to internalize aspects of their parents’ personality or their home environment growing up.  I’ve heard that my grandmother tended to be preoccupied about money.  If this really was a personality trait of hers, it’s possible that it comes from her father’s own preoccupation with money that I’ve seen evidenced in his papers.  Other stories I’ve heard have mentioned that Albert’s family didn’t have much money.  Sometimes people who don’t have money growing up become fixated on this or any other item that they believe was lacking in their childhood.  My grandmother’s alleged monetary quirk may have been also because she witnessed her own parent’s money troubles and so became concerned that she may face the same issues down the road.

I think that’s enough psychoanalysis for one blog posting, but it is interesting to hear these family stories and then try to piece together what motivated certain a ancestor's actions or personality traits.

Albert Womble's Collateral Kith and Kin

Any genealogy book worth its salt will advise you to research an ancestors siblings and other collateral relatives as well as the ancestor themselves.  I've read this many, many times and I wish I had a dime for every time that I've read it.

I'll confess that this is a lot easier to say than to put to practice.  Only recently have I begun to fill in the holes in my family group sheet in regards to some one of my ancestors' siblings and half-siblings.

Awhile back I heard how FamilySearch is digitizing many their records.  I checked out what was available, but wasn't too impressed because much of what was available weren't items that I didn't already have. 

I'm really not too fond of doing genealogical research online and I don't recommend it as a rule.  My belief is that you should always, always try to find the documents you need from an archive, Family History Center, or courthouse.  Lately when I've been exploring what's available I've found that there are a lot of digital records out there.

The collateral relatives for Albert Womble are his siblings, Maude B. Cudworth, Thomas Jefferson, Ernest Allen, and Charles.  Albert also has half-siblings that are from his father, John Washington Womble's first marriage to Mary Jane Stephens.  I believe that John's first wife died around the Civil War and he married Rhoda Caroline Richardson after the war.  The children that John W. had with Mary Jane are: Joab, Ellen, Adolphes Winfield, Martha L., Tranquilla Blanche, Franklin, Ruffin, and Jesse.

The shocking thing I found is that Ancestry has a selection of digital images of documents on their site.  Recently I searched for Tranquilla Blanche Womble or Wamble as it's sometimes spelled, she's one of Albert Womble's half-siblings.  My search came up a digitized image of her death certificate.  I was floored because I really thought that I wouldn't find anything! 

I tried to find death information for her brother, Adolphes Winfield Womble, they seemed to live together for their entire lives, but was unsuccessful.  I did a search on Ancestry of the census records for that household which consisted of Adolphes, Martha L., and Tranquilla Blanche in 1880 living in Hardeman County, Tennessee.  A search of the 1900 Federal Census showed Adolphes and Blanche living in McNairy County, Tennessee without Martha.  My belief was that she may have died after the 1880 census and before 1900, but after searching for a death record, I came up empty.  My research into the recording of death information in Tennessee is that if a person died in a non-metropolitan area before 1914 then there probably isn't a record of it.  Even though recording was put into practice in 1914, it wasn't pervasive and I believe that if the death occurred before 1918 or 1920 there's the possibility that it wasn't recorded even though official registration had started in 1914.

My thoughts turned to how could I at least get an idea of when Adolphes and Martha died.  The solution:  probate records.  I wasn't sure if Adolphes had left anything to his sister, Blanche but a search wouldn't hurt.

I did a search of the USGenWeb's archive for the state of Tennessee and came up with a transcription of a probate index for McNairy County, Tennessee.  This was searched for Blanche and Adolphes and I found a listing for them with the page number. 

I took this information with me to FamilySearch's website and searched through their digitized probate records.  In case you decide to try this at home, please keep in mind that the page numbers on their digital image viewer don't tally with the printed pages on the pages of the probate books.  Simple common sense helps to find the page.  I was able to print the images, which was great.  There wasn't any date on Blanche's will, but Adolphes' said he was deceased and had the date of 7 July 1919 on it.  While it would be great to find an exact death date, something is better than nothing. 

A search was done for deaths and probate records in Hardeman County, Tennessee for Martha L. Womble, but nothing was found.  My belief was that she probably died there because it's the last place of residence that I know of.

I did a search of cemetery records for McNairy County at www.mcnairytnhistory.com/cemeteries.html and found a listing for both Blanche and Adolphes at the Mars Hill Cemetery that's mentioned on Blanche's death certificate.  The cemetery is located in Adamsville, Tennessee and that's another place to search for records too.  There's a death date for Adolphes on the page that says he died 6 August 1922.  I don't know if that's true.  It still seems weird to me that if he died in 1922 then why haven't I been able to locate a death certificate for the man.

While I was searching away on Ancestry, I did a search for Ellen Womble, who is another one of Albert Womble's half-siblings.  I already knew that there is a public tree with her in it on the site and so I looked at that information to try to see if I could actually verify some of the data.  I was able to locate a digitized image of her marriage record to Isham Burgess Bowling on 4 August 1869 in Hardeman County, Tennessee.  So that's why she wasn't listed as living with her father in 1870, because she was married by then and living with her husband.  The rest of the information on her is unconfirmed, but it states that she moved to Texas with her husband, had many children with him and he died around 1882 and I don't think that she ever remarried.  Ellen or Nellie as I see her referred to, died in Texas in 1924.  

Today, I did a Google search for Ellen's older brother Joab, and was surprised by what I found.  Someone, who I should try to make contact with has a collection of photos on a website that seems devoted to picture sharing.  This person appeared to be connected to the Bowling family and Ellen was their grandmother or great-grandmother.  They had posted digital images of letters from both Joab and Blanche that were written to their sister, Ellen.  Another picture showed a digital image of information that someone had written about Ellen, her husband Isham Bowling, and her siblings.  This information mentioned a letter from Martha L. who was referred to as Mattie.  Mattie apparently wrote her sister in 1918 from Vernon, Missouri. 

Unfortunately, I saw no way for me to copy or print the information at least for my own use without joining the site.  But at least I knew I was wrong to assume that Martha had died because she had written to her sister in 1918!

Since I already know that there were digital images of Tennessee marriage records on Ancestry, I went there and searched for a marriage record for Martha Womble to someone.  I found a marriage record for a Mattie Womble to C. A. Long in McNairy County, Tennessee on 24 August 1898.  I'm not sure if this is the Mattie Womble I'm looking for, but it seems plausible because her siblings were living in McNairy County in 1900 and while I don't know when they moved there it just seems that it is my Mattie.

I did find a census record for a couple named Charlie A. and Mattie Long living in Vernon, Missouri in 1920, so it seems as if this is the missing Womble relative.  I still haven't come across a death record for either Charles or Mattie, but I'll try to remain vigilant in my search.

I still have not been able to find any additional information on Joab and he still remains my mystery man.  What's with him going off and fighting for the Confederacy, disappearing and then reappearing in the 1910 Federal Census in Taney County, Missouri anyway?!

Nor have I verified that Mary Jane Stephens and her three young children, Franklin, Ruffin, and Jesse died.  The person with the photo online did mention them and said that they didn't have any letters from them that were sent to their sister.  This makes me think that those kids really did die, I don't know about their mother, and I may never have an answer. 

Weeknight Projects

Diner's interior

For the past week, I’ve spent a little bit of time each evening working on my diner.  A few years ago I had made the beginnings of the counter and had even gone so far as to cover the front of it with thin cardboard.  The ‘skeletons’ of what will become the booths and tables were made at this time too. 

At that time I had considered covering the booth pieces with stained pieces of wood, but had decided against this because I didn’t want to deal with the wood stain fumes.  The instructions in Kath Dalmeny’s book talk about covering the booth pieces with brown paper.  I didn’t think the brown paper I had available would match the color shown in the book.  What I did have on hand were a couple of small dark brown gift boxes.  I saved these until I was ready to use them to cover the booths. 

Tabletops and counter section drying
after having paper glued to the backside

Over the past week I glued pieces of these dark brown boxes to the foam core booth ‘skeletons’.  Previously I had cut from nice cream-colored heavy paper the tops for the tables and the counter.  The thought of gluing the paper to the curved parts of the counter scared me, so I started off by gluing the paper onto the tops of the counter and the tables.  After this dried, I glued the paper completely to the tabletops and then started gluing it to the counter. 

Counter with heavy paper glued on top

  I was still bothered by the curved part of the   counter, so I glued the straight areas first to   build my confidence.  I had done some gluing   of fabric to curved pieces of wood and it was   always a difficult and messy process. 

Gluing the paper to curved
section of counter

I cut triangular pieces out of the edge of the paper when I began gluing the paper to the counter’s curved edge.  Little by little I glued these triangular edges to the underside of the counter.  This process worked out very well for me and as the counter’s creamy-colored surface began to take shape, my confidence in the project grew.

Gluing straight edges to counter's underside 

When I first began to make the counter and other furniture for the diner I knew I wanted to copy the items that Ms. Dalmeny makes for the diner in her book, Dollhouse Style.  However, when it actually came to making the furniture for this scene I found that I had a space issue.  The shop that I decided would be made into a diner is too small to accommodate the dimensions of the furniture that are illustrated in her book. 

Upon realization of this I decided to use it more as inspiration for my project.  I scaled down the counter’s size and then made booths and tables out of Lego to test out the sizing of those items coupled with the counter.  This turned out to be a great way to get an idea of how the diner would look when finished. 

I then transferred those measurements of the Lego made booths and tables into foam core board pieces, which I glued together to form the ‘skeletons’ for the booths.

When I first designed my counter I realized that it wouldn’t be able to be a freestanding object.  The plan is to have one end next to a wall.  The other end will be hinged to add an element of realism in that whomever is working the counter will be able to move from behind the counter out to the tables.  The plan is to put a door behind the counter.  This won’t be a working door and will only be there to hint that there is a kitchen behind the door.

Cut pieces of foam core board will be used as booth seats and backs.  Working on this project has spread to the weekend.  Saturday was spent cutting batting and vinyl fabric to the proper size to use for the booths and stools.  The batting was then sewn using a sewing machine to the wrong side of the vinyl fabric and I began to sew the stool cushion pieces together.  I tried to sew the pieces for the stool cushion on the sewing machine, but unfortunately found that this wasn't possible because of the pieces were too small.  I only cut enough fabric pieces for two stools.  I think that I may only have room around the counter for two stools.

I sewed a cushion for one stool today by hand.  I made the small circle of cardboard to go inside as Ms. Dalmeny suggests and put a couple of pieces of foam circles inside and then sewed it up.  What was difficult was that it wasn’t until I trimmed the seam allowances that everything fit inside.  It would’ve been nice if that had been mentioned in the book.

After covering the countertop and extended counter section with heavy paper, I hinged the sections together.  The hinges were first glued to the edges and then the tiny nails were sunk into the foam core board.  This will all be reinforced with glue to keep the nails from coming out.  I found a piece of mat board that will work for the floor.  On a shopping trip to my beloved local miniatures store, Once Upon A Time, I purchased flooring paper that I’ll use in the diner.  My hope is to arrange the pieces so that border around the outside edge is continuous.  Since flooring is the last thing that I do when creating one of my miniature projects, it will take awhile to see if this actually will work out.

Sewing the stool’s cushion takes a lot of work.  I took a break from it by gluing the booths’ foam core board seats and backs to the coverings for the booths.  I weighed these all down with books after covering with waxed paper.

From The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Frank B. Cudworth

The information on this piece of paper is amazing, but how accurate or true is it?  It is from John Womble’s file at the DAR in Washington, DC.  It is the only piece of paper in the said file on him.  Some of the children listed that John Washington had with his second wife Rhoda Caroline are children that I’ve never heard of, and haven’t been mentioned on a census.  In the 1900 census, Caroline says that she gave birth to 7 children and 5 are living.  This would correlate with why I had no knowledge of Mary or Almedia.  That part can be verified by another document.  The birth years in the birth dates of her siblings don’t match the information that I’ve found about her siblings from other information.  What’s funny is that the birthdays tally with other information that I have on John W. and Caroline’s kids.  I can’t figure out why the years are so off, but maybe that’s just how Maude was.  Maude gives her birth year as 1874, but that’s not possible because she’s listed on the 1870 census as being 1 year old.  This would mean she was born about 1869.

In regards to her half-siblings, no birth information is given and she doesn’t list the last three children, Franklin, Ruffin, and Jesse.  This makes me think that they died before she knew about them.  Maude doesn’t mention the death date for her dad’s first wife, Mary Jane and this makes me think that she didn’t know this information.  Perhaps, she didn’t list out her half-siblings birth dates because they weren’t something that her family celebrated.  I sort of had the impression that those children may have been old enough to live on their own after their father remarried.  Maude and her siblings may not have had much if any contact with the children from their father’s previous relationship.  This scenario breathes life into my previous notion that John W.’s first wife and three youngest children died during the war or that the youngest children died soon after the war or at least before 1870.

There is the possibility that John W.’s 1^st wife divorced him while he was in Nashville and that she took the 3 youngest children with her when the marriage ended.  However, I really doubt that they divorced.  I know that I will probably never know for sure, but I really feel that his first wife died and that the younger children soon followed her. 

In the 1860 census, Mary Jane’s youngest child, Jesse was 2 months old when the enumerator visited the family on 29 September 1860.  That means that Jesse may have been born 29 July.  The war started in April 1861 and the child would’ve been under a year old.  During that era, I believe that a child that age would be more vulnerable to illnesses and so it’s wouldn’t surprise me if they died before the next census.  Jesse’s older brothers, Franklin and Ruffin were a little older, but I still feel would’ve been susceptible to the same childhood illnesses.  I think that the other children survived because they were older.  Mary Jane was about 35 in 1860 and was of childbearing age so it’s possible that she may have died during childbirth or from complications afterwards. 

If that happened, then perhaps it’s more likely that John W. would’ve had a photograph taken of his wife Caroline before he went off to work in Nashville.  Perhaps he regretted what happened when he left his first wife and their kids behind during the Civil War and wanted something to remember her by.  So maybe that tintype I have of the lady is really Rhoda Caroline Richardson Womble after all.

The other issue that I have with the information about her half-siblings and her dad’s 1^st wife is that some of the names are wrong.  I may be wrong in my own data on this family, but it’s my understanding that the children that John W. had with his first wife are:

Joab

Ellen

Adolphes Winfield

Martha

Tranquilla Blanche

Franklin

Ruffin

Jesse

It’s perfectly understandable to me that the names Joe, Mattie, and Blanche may be nicknames for Joab, Martha, and Tranquilla respectively.  However, it makes no sense that she would refer to Adolphes Winfield as Winifred, unless it’s a typo.  Maude also refers to John W.’s 1^st wife as Jane when I’ve typically seen her name as Mary Jane, but then I’m probably being nitpicky. 

The birth information about Maude’s mother may most likely be accurate.  The family would have celebrated her birthday and she probably knew what year her mother was born in and the general area.  It’s possible from the vagueness of the birth location of her mother that Caroline really did move away from Indiana when she was young and so didn’t know the town or didn’t remember.

The story about the family Bible being lost in a tornado is possible.  This varies from the story I had heard that it was lost in a flood and I just assumed it was destroyed in one of the floods that Paducah had.

Maude states information about her grandfather, John Womble’s Revolutionary War experiences and injuries he sustained during those years.  She also makes mention of some of his children and a person named Josephine, who she believes was his daughter. 

There is absolutely no way that Maude could know anything about her grandfather’s experiences during the Revolutionary War or injuries that he had from his service.  This information wouldn’t have come from her grandfather because he died in 1820 and she wasn’t born until the late 1860’s.  She must have heard these things from her father, John W.  However, I even wonder just how accurate that information would’ve been.  John W. was born to his father when his dad was quite old.  Not only that, but his father died when he was about 5 years old.  Granted he would’ve been around his father every day, so it’s possible that he would remember things his dad told him about his life.  I still find this rather unlikely.  In my own life, I have only vague memories of people that I knew when I was that young and I certainly wouldn’t have paid much attention if they told me about their war experiences.  It’s my belief that John W. didn’t know his father very well and only had a few memories of him.  The information he may have had would’ve come from his mother and siblings who knew his father for a longer period of time.  I don’t know how accurate that information would’ve been coming from his mother or siblings to John W. and then to his children. 

The last bit of information mentioned is that she states that she has a certified copy of a land grant for her grandfather’s service in the Revolutionary War.  I don’t know if I should believe this or not.  The reason being is that John Womble sold his bounty land to a William Anderson in 1799, Anderson did sell the land back to John Womble, and later John said that he never received the deed back when he petitioned Anderson’s daughters later.  While it’s possible that Maude could’ve obtained such a document, since she lived in the area where this bounty land was located maybe she had better access to the records then someone else that didn’t live there.  However, she says a lot of things in this report she wrote that I find far fetched and unproven.  If she has this certified copy of this grant why didn’t she supply a copy of it with this report that she wrote to the DAR.

The first page of Maude Womble Cudworth’s DAR application from 1934 lists the lineage of her family from herself to her grandfather, John Womble.  I believe the information for her birthplace; even though, I know the family didn’t live in McNairy County, TN because it’s possible that her mother was staying in another town with a relative until she gave birth.  Maude’s father might have been working in Nashville around the time that his wife was due to give birth and a relative may have been the only person around who could’ve been there for her.  I can’t see that her husband would’ve wanted to leave his wife alone in that condition, so he may have seen to it that she was visiting with relatives for an extended period of time. 

Maude would most likely know her father’s birth date because the family would have celebrated that day and she may have known how old he was too.  The marriage date information for her parents isn’t correct.  Their marriage date is actually 18 May 1865.  I think this may be just a typo on Maude’s part because her mother died in November, so I can see that this isn’t really a sign that she has misinformation. 

The information about her grandparents, John and Catherine is less detailed than that for her parents.  Most of the dates could’ve come from or been calculated from her grandfather’s pension application file.  However, I haven’t been able to calculate John’s birth year to 1756 if he’s a 60 year old in 1818 when it seems that the application was written.  It seems to me that he may have been born in 1758 instead of 1756 that appears to be claimed everywhere.  An argument could be made that at the time when John Womble existed people didn’t really know when they were born.  I’m not sure when celebrating birthdays became a regular activity.  It is possible that Maude could’ve gotten some of this information from the pension application, or from her father who may have remembered them.  It makes sense that the death dates are more complete than the birth information since Maude’s father would probably remember when his mother died, but his father’s death may have been a faint memory to him. 

Maude could’ve gotten John Womble’s place of death from the pension file or remembered it from information her father told her.  Again, this may have been something her father remembered about his father.  On the lineage form the birth place for John Womble is N.C., which is interesting because that means he could’ve been born anywhere in the state.

The second page gives an account as to John Womble’s service to the United States during the Revolutionary War.  The only way that Maude could’ve known about these details is either from reading her grandfather’s pension file or remembering details her father told her about her grandfather.  I find it a bit unlikely that her father would remember much about his father.  Although, John W. could’ve told Maude stories about his father that he remembered his siblings or mother telling him. 

The last page of Maude’s DAR application shows a little more information about John Womble’s wives, Unknown and Catherine and the children that he had with them.  Again the marriage information for John marriages is incomplete.  There’s a bit more with his marriage to Catherine, but not much.  Because this information is so incomplete, I think that the source was the pension file.  In the file John’s son, Benjamin F. says that his parents got married in Edgecombe County, NC in 1798, so it must have come from there.  The pension file at NARA makes no mention of another wife that John Womble was married to in the past or other children that he had with another woman.  This doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but it does make me wonder why it wasn’t mentioned and what happened with them.  If it did happen how is that Maude knew about this marriage, births of those children and their wives names?  Where did she obtain this information about John’s first wife and his children?

The date of this marriage is 1781 and the location and name of the first wife is unknown.  I’m a bit skeptical of this first marriage because I haven’t found any information to support it happening and I think the date comes to close to John’s service in the Revolutionary War.  In his pension application, John says that in 1780 he helped in defending Charleston when it was under British attack.  He was captured and while held by the British met a Doctor Lee.  The doctor concocted a story that John was his servant and the two were paroled together.  John traveled with the doctor to Washington, NC where they split up and John spent the remainder of the war on the banks of the Tar River.  The Tar River begins near Washington, NC, so it’s possible that John stayed in that area or traveled up river to Tarboro where it appears he lived near from 1798 until his death around 1820.  I don’t see how John could’ve gone through all of this and been able to get married so soon after his ordeal with the British, unless of course he knew the woman beforehand.  According to the pension file on John Womble, he enlisted in Halifax, NC.  This city is some distance from Tarboro, so it seems unlikely that he would’ve been familiar with it.

According to the application, John and his first wife had three sons, Thomas born in 1783, William born in 1785, and John born in 1788.  The older sons both married.  Thomas married a woman named Eliza Gray and William’s wife was named Drusilla. 

Again, I’m skeptical of this information because it doesn’t jive with the information that I have on John Womble.  I don’t know what happened to John’s first wife, but if she died soon after the birth of their son John in 1788 it would have left him free to marry Catherine in 1798.  I did find a John Wombel listed in the 1790 Federal Census for Edgecombe County, NC.  He is the only person listed in his household.  If this is my John Womble then where are his children or is this just a person with a similar name?  If my John Womble had been married before he married Catherine then he would’ve had two or maybe three children ranging in age from 15 to 10.  There aren’t any additional people listed in their household in the 1800 census, so that’s why I question whether or not these children are really his.  It is possible that if his wife died that he sent the children to live with a relative.  This would explain why they’re not listed as living with him in the 1790 and 1800 census.

Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend Projects

The Thanksgiving Holiday is typically spent eating too much and then going out in the wee hours of Friday morning (or in the case of this year late Thursday night) for some Black Friday shopping for loved ones' Christmas presents.

This year I spent the holiday eating too much, and decided to avoid the Black Friday and after Thanksgiving Day sales to work on some much neglected craft projects.

The first project isn't really something that's been neglected, but was pretty crucial to my knitting world. At the Tuesday before Thanksgiving stitching session with my knitting group I ran out of the pink yarn that I had been knitting my pink and black bathmat with. I vowed inwardly to find some pink yarn soon because I didn't want a UFO floating over me, and the bathmat is something that I kept mentioning to my husband that I would make.

On Wednesday night my husband and I drove around to the various craft stores searching for the perfect shade of pink yarn to match what I had been using to make the bathmat. Unfortunately, that shade of pink has been discontinued. I'm sure the yarn could've been found at one of the local yarn shops in my area, but I really just want something very inexpensive for my bathmat because after all-it's a bathmat. I found an acceptable shade of pink yarn at the local Michael's and I think it's turning out to be a decent choice even though it's a bit more slippery than the original yarn I had been using.

Whenever a long holiday weekend approaches I think about how I would like to spend the time. Various ideas flit through my mind. I spent part of Thanksgiving Day knitting the bathmat between meal preparations and knew that I didn't want to spend the whole weekend working on that project no matter how noble that would be.

I have papers and other memorabilia from my great grandfather that I had been going through and documenting my findings, but I learned last weekend that I could only sit and go through the things for a short period of time-so that project will have to sit on the shelf for awhile.

I started embroidering a miniature rug for one of my dollhouses some years ago. This project made it onto my list of New Years Resolutions for next year, but I've considered taking it up again just because it's been sitting idle for so long.

While installing the tile bathroom floor I made in another dollhouse I found and repaired several electrical problems in the house. One of the electrical problems has remained. I considered fixing it over the weekend.

Then there's the miniature diner that I'm making. I made some progress on the project some years ago, but this too has gone unfinished.

I also have another miniature rug that is in the planning stages. This is a life-sized 'Tapestry' needlepointed rug from an old craft magazine that I plan to scale down to 1/12th the size and make it for one of my dollhouses.

After discussing my dilemma with my husband who put them in perspective by saying that some of them were fairly small and others were large ongoing projects. His suggestion was to work on the diner.

I worked a bit on the diner. I made a pattern for the diner's floor, but because I'm lacking the correctly sized piece of thin cardboard, I didn't get much farther with that portion of it. So I moved on to making the diner's furniture. This mainly involved gluing and then as anyone who has done much crafting or miniature work, there isn't much to do with the project until the glue dries. It's sort of akin to genealogy or blocking knitting. You can order a document or you can block a knitted object, but once those tasks are done you can only sit back and wait either until the document arrives or the knitting dries.

While waiting for the glue to dry on my diner, I decided to work a bit on scaling down the rug I was planning. I have a wonderful cross-stitch making program called Pattern Maker. I spent the better part of the day drawing the rug's pattern into my program. I was able to utilize many functions in the program that I didn't know existed. This helped me to recreate the rug. I still couldn't get the size down to something that I could use, but resolved to rework the pattern again on the morrow.

The next day, my thoughts returned to the rug that I had started long ago. I had made a partial pattern for it on paper and because I had been so pleased with my cross-stitch pattern making software I decided to recreate the pattern on my computer.

By using the software I was able to create a pattern for it. The size is a bit smaller than I had originally planned, but I think it will still work for its intended room.

While eating lunch I went through the number of stitches for each portion of the 'Tapestry' rug. I came up with a configuration of the center motif being repeated six times in a 2x3 configuration and then surrounding that with the rest of the appropriately proportioned borders. This hasn't been finished and so far I think the rug may still be too large for the room that I'm designing it for.