Unexpected Treasures: A Win-Win!

 

Howell Family with George
(middle row 3rd from right)
and granddaughter Virginia Irene
(2nd from left)

A Win-Win Strategy

Years ago, I was introduced to the book “Strategy of the Dolphin: Scoring A Win in A Chaotic World” (1990) by Dudley Lynch and Paul L. Kordis. It was the summertime and I remember reading it while lounging on a 1960s green sleeper couch at our cottage. It’s a great couch to sit on because there is a larger picture window overlooking the lake. (The couch, now very much “shabby chic” over 30 years later is still there.) I don’t remember who recommended the book to me, but at this time I had begun teaching high school and spent summers those first years doing paid  internships and professional development experiences. Maybe it was someone at the internship at Ford Motor learning about CAD-like computing to take back to the classroom?

Anyway, back to the book. 

The main premise of the book is that one can be successful with a Win-Win mentality. They use a metaphor of a dolphin to describe how a dolphin loves to win but doesn’t like to do it at the expense of others. Being creative and flexible and thinking outside the box for solutions that benefit everyone can be a successful strategy. For me, this book was a head nodding experience that resonated and has stuck with me for 30 years. I hadn’t consciously thought about this book in decades but when I reflect on my experience this summer, I can see its imprint on me in all aspects of my life, including family history.

I have always been service oriented, a member of Alphi Phi Omega (National Service Fraternity) in college and now an active Rotarian (our motto is “Service above Self”), it gives me joy to serve others. This summer, I decided to join the Tecumseh Historical Society. After my second visit to the Historical Museum where I found some amazing photos of my husband’s ancestors and helped to identify some unidentified photos (See Serendipity or Determination?), an officer in the club  invited me down to the basement where the archives are located and suggested that I might find some great finds but it was a restricted area and I could only go accompanied by others. At the same time, an email from the archivist was soliciting volunteers. I’m in! They welcomed me and were happy to invite me to help organize the archives.

By the time this all happened, it was mid-August, but for the last month I have spent one afternoon a week on a project that was assigned to me. I am organizing, cataloging and preserving the files in two drawers of a filing cabinet. I have learned a lot about Tecumseh and also about archival preservation and come across some very unexpected treasures!

Some Tecumseh History 

One of the local heroes is Musgrove Evans, a man born in 1785 in Pennsylvania with a thirst to explore west. He was a surveyor who came to Lenawee County and platted out the town of Tecumseh in 1824. He helped to settle the town but went further west to Texas after his wife died in 1832.

His surveying equipment is proudly on display at the Tecumseh Historical Museum.

Interestingly, this summer I came across a biography (more likely an autobiography) on p. 238 of Knapp & Bonner’s 1903 book Illustrated History and Biographical Account of Lenawee County, MI of Jim’s great-great grandfather George Howell in which states he not only learned how to use surveying equipment but was the possessor of Musgrove Evans’ instruments!

Imagine my surprise! 

Imagine my surprise!

When my husband and daughter saw the instruments and I showed them the text, we all agreed that maybe Musgrove Evans had many such instruments and maybe not this exact one. Note that George was not born until 4 years after  Musgrove Evans left Tecumseh.

Well, further research indicated that George’s father became a surveyor for other communities in the area, so it is not surprising that young George might have been taught by his father and his father was the original recipient of Evans’ compass and chain.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was doing my due diligence at the archives, working on the “E” file and found an envelope labeled “Musgrove Evans Surveying Equipment”. In it were a variety of handwritten titles and descriptions that looked like they had been used to help describe a display at some point. And among them was this placard mounted on some display board:

The last line is what stood out at me “It is now the property of Geo. Howell”. I recognized the handwriting because I had seen it this summer at the Bentley Library on an alumni response card and also a registry at medical school, it is Dr. George Howell, my husband’s great-great grandfather’s handwriting.

 

According to the archivist, the items found in the envelope were put in the envelope by her when she was cleaning out drawers of an old desk upstairs in the museum. My guess is that at one time, this placard was displayed with the other ones in the envelope. I am still investigating how the compass and chain made it back to the museum but for now I’m convinced that he did in fact own a compass and chain of Musgrove Evans!

This is not the only treasure that I’ve found while working. Last week, I had completed a task but still had a little time before my “shift” was over, so (with permission) I pulled out the Macon box and started reading through its contents. And came across a most wonderful photo of the 1910/1911 one-room school house photo in Macon. All of the people were identified on the back, so I quickly identified “Irene Conklin” and flipping it over I saw this sweet 13 year old girl on the left in the 4th row peeking around another girl that could easily be identified as Jim’s grandmother (and granddaughter of George Howell) as a teenager!

And the program from her Macon graduation exercises before she headed to Tecumseh for High School.

I feel good that I am helping in the archives and delighted that I am finding a few gems along the way. As I live the "Strategy of the dolphin" this is a total Win-Win and I can’t wait until I go back next summer to volunteer in the archives! 

Serendipity or Determination? The Cascading Photos of George

Dr. George Howell, Class of 1863
Enhanced by myHeritage

 My whole life “things” have worked out for me. I am a hard worker, goal oriented, and determined, but I sometimes wonder if I don’t live under a rainbow of serendipity. Instead of having a raincloud follow me, I tend to arrive when the rainbow appears and find a proverbial pot of gold! And it’s never been so true in my family history journey than the past two weeks!

It’s no secret that I love old photos, especially ones of our ancestors. I feel so fortunate to have as many as we do and have at least 1 photo of both Jim and my grandparents (collectively all 8), great-grandparents (collectively all 16), and great-great-grandparents (collectively 21 of possible 32). Earlier this summer I shared that I found a number of “new to me” photos about Jim’s ancestors I had photos of but a different point in their lives (See Sometimes you really luck out!), today this Blog is about Dr. George Howell (1836-1909) and a cascading number of photos I have seen and acquired in the past three weeks. Was it serendipity or determination?

Original Photo

Previously, my only photo of George

Prior to this summer, I had one version of a photo of Dr. George Howell, a portrait from the Lenawee County Biography (see Our Genealogy Angels). Over the last 3 weeks, I have acquired 5 more portrait photos from very different points of his life and numerous family group shots, which might not have happened if the order of events were different.

The first domino

After learning that George was instrumental in the Lenawee County Court House (see Connections at the Court House) and that he earned his MD from U of Michigan, I decided to go to the Bentley Library Archives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’ve been there before for my own family (see Always Check the Original), but there is so much more to their holdings. It was fun to find not only his original handwritten Thesis on Cholera Infantum manuscript, but also a Class of 1863 Photograph.

(These are over 160 years old!!) There were two versions of the photographs, one where his portrait was labeled and a second where he wasn’t identified. If the unlabeled version had been the only one to survive, I’m not sure I would have figured out which was George or even if he was present! (Call Number: 87253 Bimu C 46 2; Oversize Folder 3) (It is interesting to note that class photos like these were few and far between, in fact there is NOT a class photo for his brother who graduated the year before.)

Maybe you can see the resemblance, but I don’t think that I would have ever identified young George! I now had 2 portraits, young and old.

The Cascade

The next day I decided to go to the Lenawee County Museum, looking for images and records for my other project on Sand Lake. I didn’t find a whole lot, so I turned my attention to George and other ancestors from Lenawee county. There was a file on George Howell and in it was a fading pixelated copy of a family portrait scene and a distinguished gray George portrait. I definitely would have identified this George, but had never seen these photos before.

Two days after the Bentley and the next day after the County Museum, I was at the Tecumseh Museum to buy some tickets for a Bicentennial celebration and had time to chat with some other members and relook through the binders. I’m not sure if I missed a binder or now that I had seen young George’s image I was sensitized to it, but I found an unidentified tintype that looked like George! 

Equipped with a photo on my phone of young George, I compared them and was in awe that here is an image of George probably a year later for his wedding in 1864. If I had not had the Medical School photo, there is no way I would have identified this one now. Fascinatingly, it was with 4 other tintypes that I didn’t recognize but hoped to identify (I have since figured it out, a blog for another day!). My count had increased to 4 portraits and a hard to recognize family shot.

A Relative’s Collection

Jim and I became acquainted with one of his second cousins and her husband in 2016. They had several plastic tubs of photos and albums they were willing to bring to us to see. Her grandparents remained in Tecumseh through the 1960’s and her mother became the owner of all of the family photos and her husband is the family historian. Jim’s second cousin has since passed away but her husband is still actively searching and sharing the collection. I knew that he shared photos on Ancestry.com and also to the Tecumseh Library. I thought maybe he was the source of some of the other photos at the museums, so I reached out to ask if he was and if I could see the originals for better copies. I sent him the “new to me” photos and asked if he had seen them.

The young George photos were new to him and although he had provided a few photos to the Tecumseh Library, he had not provided any to either of the museums. He did have the original of the family shot and asked if I wanted to come over to his house to see the collection the next week. Of course!!

Spending nearly 5 hours with Rich Renaud and his collection of his wife’s family portraits, I took over 150 photos of his collection (not all George!) and among them collected four more family group photos and originals of another, and one more portrait and a fun little business card.

The cherry on top

After I left Rich’s that afternoon, he realized that there was one more photo he wanted to show me but had forgotten. He sent me a picture and asked if I knew who it was? 

Yes, there is no doubt in my mind that it was George Howell, probably a high school or Hillsdale College photo. A beautiful ambrotype in a case taken about 1858.

If I had not seen the 1863 identified photo, I would have never known it.

Serendipity or Determination? Maybe a little bit of both!

References and Compliments:

Thank you to Rich Renaud, Bentley Library Archives, Tecumseh Public Library, Tecumseh Historical Museum, and Lenawee County Historical Museum for maintaining and sharing their collections.

Dutch Connections in Unexpected Places

Dr. Joseph Howell (1808-1888)

 This past week I made an unexpected discovery in Jim’s family. It turns out that Dr. Joseph Howell and wife, Letitia VanDuyn, who settled in Macon, Michigan in 1831, also started a church in Macon. It is not unexpected that they helped to start a church, what was surprising (to me) is that they chose for it to be affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church. 

Reformed Church of Macon

Jim’s Howell ancestors  arrived in the new world sometime before 1765 from (unconfirmed) Wales, so they would not have been familiar with the Dutch Reformed Church. VanDuyn’s, although a Dutch name, were part of the early Dutch immigration in mid-1600s, exact date is unknown but Jim’s 8th great-grandfather Gerret Corneliszen Van Duyn was married to Jacomina Jacob Swart in October 1663 in New York. 

So, it was surprising to me that they might be members of the Dutch Reformed Church and help to found the Reformed Church in Macon, Michigan. I found their names sprinkled throughout the US, Selected States Dutch Reformed Church Membership Records, 1701-1995. Dr. Joseph Howell and his wife were 2 of the original 8 members and Joseph served for decades as a church elder. His son, Dr. George Howell (the one who helped build the Lenawee County court house) was also an active member and helped the church to build the new beautiful church when they outgrew the one room building. (See a recently acquired postcard photo I found at a local antique store, mailed in 1908.)

Postcard, postmarked 1908

To learn more about the church, I read a reference to The History of the Churches of Macon (1934) and tracked it down in HathiTrust (an incredible repository of out of print books). This centennial celebration book talks about the history of ministers and members of the 3 churches in Macon: Methodist, Reformed Church, and Baptist. The only one that remains a church is the Methodist Church, but in a town of 1,330 in our contemporary times maybe that’s all that can be supported?

Connections to Hope College

While reading the history, I learned that in the 1850s and 1860’s there were not an abundant number of ministers willing to serve one (or even two) churches when the membership numbers were less than 20, so they were served by a lot of itinerant pastors. But in 1869, they found a pastor willing to move to the area and serve the Reformed Church of Macon along with the Southern Macon Reformed church, a Reverend Peter Moerdyk. Rev. Moerdyk immigrated with his parents as a young man from the Netherlands to (eventually) west Michigan. He was the  youngest member of the first class of Hope College graduates in 1866! After graduation he went on to be a member of the first class of Western Theological Seminary graduates in 1869. 

Top right, Peter Moerdyk

Rev. Moerdyk’s first official post as pastor was in Macon. He served there for 2 years before being enticed to join Hope College as an Assistant Professor of Latin in 1871. It is very likely that Jim’s great-grandmother, Viva Amelia Howell (born in 1870), would have been baptized into the church by Rev. Moerdyk!

Viva Amelia Howell
(left, 1870-1933)

For those that don’t know me, Hope College is where I met my husband, Jim, and where we graduated from! It feels kind of full circle to find this connection.

But what’s even more interesting, is that our daughters also attended Hope College, making them 2nd generation. Hope loves to see the multi-generational family members and for each new class entering will catalog all of the students who are 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th generation Hope College. Well, by happenstance, when I google searched for Peter Moerdyk, it turns out that there was a 5th generation descendant of Peter Moerdyk’s in the same class of 2021 with our daughters!! How fun (for me) that our daughters attended college (one of our daughters even had a class with him) with a young man whose 3rd great-grandfather probably baptized their 2nd great-grandmother in a little Reformed church in Macon, Michigan in 1870.

I guess the old saying, “we are all just 7 degrees of separation” continues to hold true, even with our long lost relatives!