Offer Your Help, Support To Others

Today’s is a column with reader tidbits and queries, plus some trivia I hope you’ll find interesting.

Anita Messex of Cheney shared her genealogy success story with me to share with you:

Anita was convinced she remembered an Uncle Doc and an Aunt Susie from conversations she’d had with her now deceased mother; but no living relative she contacted seemed to remember them.

Analyzing old photos, combined with some sleuthing, led her to the conclusion that these ancestors had somehow become mixed up with others in that same town with the same name - probably a father and son.

Finally, after a couple of trips to Missoula, she found the marriage license of a Dr. M.H. Kuhl to a Susie Allaway in 1911.

Mystery solved, and lessons learned?

Messex says her background in theater costuming was a big help in analyzing the photographs, and, she added, to realize that good genealogists bring all of their life experiences into their researching.

Betty Lou Goodrich, 1106 Q S.E., Moses Lake, WA 98837, writes to say she has a World War I picture of Harry Blodgett, son of Nannie Elliott Blodgett Maxey, which she would be happy to give to any of his descendants or collateral relatives.

For genealogists who live in the Pullman-Moscow area, the Whitman County Genealogical Society invites you to join their group. They meet in Pullman on the second Thursday evening. Their library is housed in the Gladish Building, 115 W. Main in Pullman. Call Judy Standar McMurray at (509) 332-2386 for more information.

Sheila Benedict sent an update on her project to catalog all Civil War veterans buried in California. She wrote that her big push is to finish Los Angeles County and get the material to a printer, but she’s still collecting material from all counties.

If you would like to inquire about (or share information on) a Civil War veteran buried in California, contact Benedict at her new address P.O. Box 1867, Santa Ynez, CA 93460-1867.

Last April, I queried Ross Rawhide Hyde, 428 Ross Point Road, Post Falls, ID 83854, about a pet project of his.

He wrote: “I’m retired from Hecla Mining Company after more than 37 years in the Silver Valley. I know, or did know, a good many people in Shoshone County when the mines were all operating in the good old days. I also had a lot of friends die in the mining industry. One day, about two years ago, I thought it would be nice to remember these friends in a special booklet for our local libraries so people could look up a friend or relative and see what happened to them and when.

“To date,” Hyde continued, “I’ve compiled the names from the disasters spanning 1913 through 1996. I also know the number of men who died between 1903 and 1913, but not their names. I have realized that to find these names, I will have to read newspapers for every single day prior to 1914, which means I have to look at 4,015 newspapers!”

If you are interested in Hyde’s project, I would think he might welcome letters of support. But if you are really interested, perhaps you’d care to read some of these old newspapers for him.

, DataTimes MEMO: Donna Potter Phillips welcomes letters from readers. Write to her at The Spokesman-Review, Features Department, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. For a response, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Donna Potter Phillips The Spokesman-Review