Crazy

Here in South Dakota, it's been cold.  Just a few hours away, it's been snowing.  In May!!!  This is the kind of stuff that makes us wonder "Why oh why did my ancestors choose to live here?"

Yesterday I came across the answer in the Bismarck , at least for my great-grandma, Josie Scriver:

The Bismarck (ND) Tribune, Saturday, 16 April 1949, pg. 1

Insanity.  There's no other reason to explain it.

(OK, I guess she really liked her sister Selma in Mott, North Dakota.)

Wordless Wednesday: Scriver Siblings

my grandfather, Howard "Shorty" Scriver (far left),

with (left - right) brothers Maynard and Harold and sister Ethel

July 4, 1980 - South Shore, SD
Man, I wish I'd gotten some of those skinny Scriver genes!

Advent Calendar: The Holiday Happenings!

Often times December to mid-January birthdays and anniversaries get over shadowed by the Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year holidays. So we're going to shine a spotlight on those family members and ancestors this time around. Select one or more December to mid-January birthdays and/or anniversaries on your family tree. Write a short tribute to or memory of those birthday guys and gals and write a toast to the anniversary couples.

The timing of this topic couldn't be better: my grandpa was born 94 years ago today. He died in 1983, when I was only 5 years old, but I remember him clearly and still miss him. I catch glimpses of him now in my dad, especially when I see him interact with my daughter. My little girl has a wonderful grandpa because I did, too.

Grandpa's name was Howard. Most people called him Shorty, though he was well over 6 feet tall. I've heard that he got the nickname in high school, before a late growth spurt. To me, he was Grandpa Shorty. He was soft spoken and gentle. He loved his kids and his grandchildren. He worked hard to take care of his family. He died too soon, and I wish I could have known him longer.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Visit with Grandma

I saw my grandma tonight. I am fortunate, both in general and as an amateur genealogist, to have two of my four biological grandparents still living; by the time most people become interested in their family history, their grandparents are long gone.

But my grandmother is, at 89, not altogether here, either. She lives in the same town as I do now, but I haven't seen her for several months--not because I wouldn't like to, but because I don't think she'd know me if I stopped by her place alone. She doesn't always know my dad these days. Usually she thinks he's her brother.

My parents had stopped by this evening. They were dropping off their dog, because he'll be staying with us while they're out of town for Thanksgiving. Dad said that he was going to see Grandma, so I decided to tag along. She seemed to know Dad today, at least intermittently, and she recognized that I am family.

Though she's well cared for in an assisted living facility now, Grandma's conversation always returns to how she hates the place (and then back again to how much she loves it) and how unhappy she is. To distract her from the negative thinking, my dad started asking her about her uncles and aunts. We found then that she actually enjoyed talking about people she hadn't thought of in years. She even said it was "fun."

Bits & pieces I want to remember:

Dad asked her the names of all her uncles, and she remembered her father's brothers, Carl and Otto (and, with some prompting, older brother Hans), and her mother's brothers, Harry, Chris, and Charley. He asked her who her favorite uncle was, and she quickly said it was Carl, because he loved children. Otto, she said, was very intelligent and liked kids well enough, but he probably didn't know all the children's names. Carl loved to play with all the kids when they would visit, especially Grandma and her sister Dolly.

Of her aunts, she said that the ones who never married were the most fun, because the others "didn't get so attached." Her father's sisters Maggie and Daisy and her mother's sister Annie were all sure to spoil the children. They saw the aunts when they would make trips to Turner County once each summer, but Maggie and Daisy would sometimes visit their farm, too. Aunt Mary, who lived nearer to her, was "no fun," and Emma, though "nice," got after the kids a lot to behave.

She remembered her maternal grandfather, Thomas Thomsen, as very quiet and nice, and she thought he was probably quite good looking when he was young. He was, as she said, "a dark man" (and photographs would suggest that he was dark-skinned, for a Dane). He liked to drink, though it was something of a ritual to him and he didn't overdo it. He made his own liquor in the basement, and everyone in the family would sample it. He would refer to it as "a bit of schnapps."

Clearly she was very fond of her mother, Martha. She spoke of how her mother cooked so much--big meals of meat and potatoes, all her own bread, and caramel rolls. Then it would be time to go out to the barn (which was "half a block long") and milk the cows. Grandma and her siblings would argue about who would milk which cows, because they knew that some gave much more milk than others and were therefore much more work, and by the time they'd finished arguing about it, her mother would have milked them all. They'd skim off the cream to sell (sometimes they had to bring it to town, but sometimes it was picked up by the dairy man) and feed the milk to the pigs. They had a lot of grocery money, she said, and never wanted for food.

Grandma loved cats when she was a girl. They always had a lot of cats on the farm. They had a dog named Buddy who herded the cattle.

Her stories are a little hard to follow, because she forgets who she's talking about and drifts into stories of another family member, but when she tells them, I can see the memories are as clear to her as though they were yesterday.

At one point, I filled in name that she couldn't recall, and Dad reminded Grandma that I "know all about the ancestors." Grandma looked right at me and asked "How do you know all that crap?" (Ha!)

I should go to see Grandma more often... Next time, I want to bring some old photos to see if they unlock more stories.

Grandma & Dad

Surname Saturday: Scriver

Surname Saturday seems to have taken off as a popular meme. Apparently to really participate, one is supposed to tweet. Frankly, I loathe Twitter. I've never understood the value of it. I guess I'm only partially participating in the meme then, but that's OK. I'm going to throw some surnames out there, anyway.

Today's surname is my maiden name, SCRIVER, which I introduced in a previous post about my immigrant great-great-grandfather, Peter Scriver. As I wrote then, I don't know that the name goes back any farther than Peter. In 1871, he registered his intention to emigrate and signed his name Peter Christensen Skriver, and that's the first instance I've seen of its use. Where did it come from?

Skriver means clerk or scribe, which would suggest that Peter (or an earlier ancestor) worked in this occupation. However, he was known to be a farmer for most of his life, except for the five years in Michigan, when he worked in the copper mines.

He didn't even use this name consistently in his younger days. For many years in the US, he was known as Peter Christensen. Family lore says that he quit using this name at some point after settling in Lynn Township, Moody County, Dakota Territory, because there were so many other people in the area named Christensen or Christiansen (which is actually a completely different name, not a spelling variation). Census records from the area suggest this might be true, as there were many people with similar names and even another Peter Christensen in the county.

The other Scrivers I've come across online are all of English ancestry. We're often confused with families named Shriver or Schreiber, and we all learn to answer to that. In my hometown, there were also people named Scriven, so I got that one, too.

According to Dynastree's surname maps, there are approximately 536 people in the US and 603 in Canada with the surname Scriver.

Wordless Wednesday: Dad's Grandpa & Grandma Hansen

my great-grandparents,
Nels & Martha (Thomsen) Hansen,
with their grandchildren, ca. 1955
My dad is on the far right, in a striped shirt,
and looks just like childhood pictures of my brother. ;-)

Wordless Wednesday: Scriver House

the house on the Scriver farm (years later)
home of Peter & Anne Scriver
Lynn Township, Moody County, South Dakota
This house was torn down in the late 1980's.

Tombstone Tuesday: Peter & Anne Scriver

graves of my great-great-grandparents
Colman Cemetery
Colman, Moody County, South Dakota

Peter C. Scriver
1844 - 1917

Anne J. Scriver
1846 - 1930

Black Sheep Sunday: The Pilgers and the Plow

image credit: farmcollector.com

Mrs. Pilger doesn't really qualify as a Black Sheep, but I'm making a very broad interpretation of the term. I don't have many ancestors who were imprisoned or otherwise known to engage in illegal activities, but I do have a few relatives who behaved badly.

I wanted to share this story today because Mrs. Pilger is said to be the sister of my great-great-grandfather, Peter Christensen Scriver, the subject of yesterday's post. For many years, the only indication I'd seen of her was the 1880 census, when a second family was enumerated in the same household as Peter, his wife, and their three children. That family included brother-in-law "Chris Pederson," age 35, his wife "Christena Pederson," age 34, and their daughter "Annie Mary Pederson," age 4. I believe that this "Christena" is Johanne Christine Christensen, born about 1840 in Torslev sogn, and somewhere along the way either she remarried or her husband became known as Jens Pilger.

I came across this story about her in a memoir written by Benjamin Johanson, who was a nephew of Peter Scriver's wife.

"...Mr. Yens [sic] Pilger, who was a brother-in-law of Uncle Peter Scriver and lived a few miles north of him, had purchased a new Mishawaka sulkey plow from the Johanson brothers [Benjamin's father and uncle]."

Benjamin used this story to illustrate the differences in personality between his father and his uncles, describing Uncle Christian Johanson as "the soul of patience." The Pilgers, who were not Benjamin's relatives, don't come off as well in the story. ;-)

"After using it for some time, Mother thinks for a season, he brought it back and left it in our yard, saying to Mother that he guessed he did not want it. I don't recall if our machinery was sold subject to trial. When Father was appraised of this fact, he took the plow back to Pilger's, explaining that a bolt, controlling an adjustment, had come loose, which evidently had not been noticed, and that the plow absolutely would work, if operated correctly. My brother was with Father on this trip and gives some interesting sidelights. He does not remember that Father was required to demonstrate that the plow would function. He says that Yens stayed outside, at a respectable distance and did not enter the discussion, which Mrs. Pilger, who evidently 'wore the family pants,' carried on.

Besides the adjustment needed on the sulky it is quite possible that the crux of the problem was that the missus did not think Yens should own a piece of machinery on which he could ride. That, moreover, was quite a general contention when riding machinery first came into use; one should be ashamed to be so lazy, and Mrs. P. did not hesitate to shame out her old man.

When Dad seemed to get nowhere with the argument, he said to Mrs. Pilger, "Have you got a cup of coffee?" This would call her attention to a very evident breach of Danish etiquette. In her subsequent confusion and embarrassment she agreed to try the plow again. But my brother says that Dad did not like Mrs. Pilger's coffees, and could not tolerate it. On the way home he did the whale and Jonah act with it, so he did not accept the coffee for any other reason than to mollify his adversary in an argument.

After Father died, the bill for the plow was still unpaid. Uncle Christian met Yens Pilger in Dell Rapids one day and discussed the matter with him. He still showed no signs that he intended to pay, though he had the plow and was using it. Uncle invited him to go in and set the matter before a Justice of the Peace. This suggestion was all that was required and the money was immediately forthcoming. I am a bit curious to know how my father would eventually have disposed of the matter."

I, in turn, am curious to know what Great-Great-Grandpa Peter thought of this business between his sister and his wife's brothers. Did he say anything to either side, or did he wisely keep his nose out of the matter? The fact that he isn't mentioned again in the story seems to indicate the latter.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: September 19, 2009

1) How old is your father now, or how old would he be if he had lived? Divide this number by 4 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."

2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ahnentafel. Who is that person?

3) Tell us three facts about that person with the "roulette number."

4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook note or comment, or as a comment on this blog post.

5) If you do not have a person's name for your "roulette number" then spin the wheel again - pick your mother, or yourself, a favorite aunt or cousin, or even your children!

1) My dad is 62. OK, this part is easy enough... Divided by 4, that's 15.5. Round up to 16.

2) That's my great-great-grandfather, Peter Christensen Scriver.

3) Here goes...

#1. According to a relative of Peter's daughter-in-law, who has done more research on him than I have yet, Peter was born in Torslev sogn (parish), Dronninglund, Hjørring amt, Denmark, on 26 December 1844. He was the son of cooper (barrel maker) Christen Pallesen and his wife, Anne Marie Christensdatter, and he had two sisters and one brother.  [This was found to be the wrong Peter, but we've caught the right one since then!]

#2. He came to the US in 1871, with his fiancee, Anne Johansen Visby. They were married on 4 September 1871, in Red Jacket (now Calumet), Houghton County, Michigan. They stayed in the area for about five years. Three of Anne's brothers also came from Denmark to Houghton County, and the men worked in the copper mines in that area. During this time, Peter and Anne's first two children, James and John (my great-grandfather), were born. Later they all homesteaded in Lynn Township, Moody County, South Dakota.

#3. Peter used the name Christensen for some time and is enumerated in the 1880 census as Peter "Christianson." Family lore says that he eventually began to go by "Scriver" because there were already so many families in the area called Christensen, and he didn't want to be confused with them. I'm quite sure that Peter didn't pick "Scriver" out of thin air, as he registered as Peter Christensen Skriver when he emigrated from Denmark, but I don't know at one point he began to use the name, or why. "Skriver" is a Danish word that means "notary" or "secretary," and it's also a family name. There's no indication that Peter's father used the name. Did it come from someplace farther back in the family tree? I hope to find out.

I could write much more about Peter and his family--and I hope to do so soon. The Scriver family is my current research focus, and I hope to put together some sort of family history book in the next couple of years.

Wordless Wednesday: Scriver Street

my grandpa, Howard "Shorty" Scriver
posing on Scriver Street in Santa Cruz, California
1979

Through the magic of Google (how did we ever do anything without Google?), I came across a transcription from the Santa Cruz Sentinel, dated 1932, that mentions my family in connection with Scriver Street:

(Santa Cruz Sentinel - February 15, 1932.)

HOME FURNISHINGS DEPARTMENT MEETS.

The home furnishings department of the Live Oak 4-H club met Saturday afternoon at the home of the leader, Mrs. James Scriver of Haughton avenue and Scriver street, Breakers beach.
The afternoon was spent in working on department projects after which a valentine party was enjoyed. Genevieve Scriver making and presenting a valentine to each girl present.
The next meeting well be in two weeks at the McCrea home on 17 avenue.
Present Saturday were Muriel McCrea, Eleanor McCrea, Marjorie Tefertiller, Dorothy Graves, Ethel Fisher, Genevieve Scriver, Mrs. Lala Doud, assistant leader and two visitor, Jane McCrea and Mary Lippencott.

Mrs. James Scriver was my great-grandmother's sister and the wife of my great-grandfather's brother (2 Scriver brothers married 2 Erickson sisters), and Genevieve Scriver was one of her daughters. Although I don't know the origins of the street name, it seems like too much of a coincidence to think that it wasn't named for the family. It's another story I'm hoping to uncover.

Wordless Wednesday: Johanson School District #8

Johanson School District #8
Moody County, South Dakota
where my great-grandfather, John Scriver, was sometimes not absent ;-)

EDITED TO ADD: I'm not actually sure if this is the school building that was in use in my great-grandfather's day. I've heard that a new building was put up in the 1930's, so this may well be it. That's something to research.