How Do You Revive A Stalled Family History Project?
Lessons from "The Susie Situation"
I’ve always been a bit of a family history hoarder.
Over the years, I’ve gathered stories, photos, and documents. I have every intention of sharing these treasures, along with the tech tips I used to find them. But when?
Everything changed the day I picked up Austin Kleon’s book Share Your Work. He introduced me to the idea of sharing what I’ve got as I go along.
I decided to test out Kleon’s advice with The Susie Situation, a family mystery involving my father’s sister Susie, a homestead fire, and the family’s descent into homelessness 100 years ago.
I started by running my findings past two amazing cousins who weren’t shy about jumping in with questions, ideas, and feedback. They’re family, so they’re not afraid to say, "You make no sense here."
Okay, maybe they’re a little afraid, but they’re brave.
I mentioned recently that by the time my Dad was 24, only three members of his family of origin were still alive.
The three survivors were Dad, his sister Sina, and his brother Robert. The three of us represent each of those survivors. I'm Bill's daughter. Melody is Sina's granddaughter. Kate is Robert's granddaughter. Each of us has a network of family that we know best. Our networks have been equally helpful and collaborative.
In early 2024 I released the first episode, having only the vaguest idea where I was headed, hoping each installment would guide me to the next. If I were a novelist or movie producer, this might not be my path, but family history works best when it’s collaborative.
Episode One was a breeze, and I thought, "This will be easy!"
But my writing muscles were out of shape. By Episode Five, Kate and Mel were shaking their heads. "Interesting detour, but what does this have to do with Susie?"
Episode Six felt good, though. We were on a roll. We had momentum. Then a close family member passed away. This was expected, yet devastating, and I stopped. All momentum lost.
I don't know about you, but when I lose my place, it's really hard to find it again.
And I think that's what happened to the Carver Clan back in 1912. They lost their place — literally, but also figuratively. Did it start when little Ralphie died? Or before that, when Grandma was sick?
But I'm getting ahead of myself, because if you haven't heard of this family before, you need some backstory.
This is a family of 10. There's Grandma Annis (Annie) Hubbard and Grandpa Orland (Orlie) Carver.
Oldest daughter Florence came from Grandma's previous marriage. She's married with children of her own.
Next is Susan (Susie), then Clarence, Ralph, Robert (Bob), Ashton, little Sina Belle, and Orland William Jr. That's my dad. He goes by Bill because, really, one Orland is way more than enough.
What is The Susie Situation?
Susie was put in a government school when she was 14 and stayed there until she turned 18. Dad only let this slip late in life, and he was reluctant to admit that he believed this was due to abuse from Grandpa.
I have to tell you that when we're talking about Grandpa Orlie, just us girls, we're not extremely complimentary.
But my Dad loved his dad. He did not admire him, mind you. He made a very specific face when talking about him — it registered pity and disgust. And yet, the love was clear. As for us girls, I haven't reached that level of sainthood yet, though I can't speak for the others.
According to Dad, in 1912 the family's house and barn both burned down on the same day, and after that the Carver Clan became a roving family, moving often, occasionally homeless, hungry and destitute. There were family rumors of foul play regarding the fire, but no facts, and no reasons given other than "somebody wanted to drive us off our land."
Most of my information came from Dad's handwritten notes.
Since he was very young during this time period, Dad relied on information from his siblings when making these notes. He didn't know exactly where the homestead was, only that he was born in Spencer, Boyd County, Nebraska. I didn't know how to research homestead claims, and finding newspaper articles back then was challenging, so there wasn't much hope of solving this mystery.
But it nagged at me, because it seemed that 1912 was the beginning of the end for this family.
This was back in the days of dialing into the internet on a modem with a landline. It was slow. Most information was not yet online. But even with those drawbacks, technology began to help with learning how to search for people, places, and things.
I found a group of relatives in a family forum. These were Edmund Hubbard's descendants and some of their cousins. Edmund was Grandma Annie's brother.
The Hubbard cousins told me that around 1876 a group of settlers moved from La Valle, Wisconsin, to a tiny postal town right on the line where Antelope and Knox counties meet in northeastern Nebraska. The town was first called Jessup and later changed to Mars.
Dick Haskin was a member of that family forum. At first I didn't pay much attention to Dick, because I couldn't figure out who he was. But then one day he mentioned that when Orland Carver grew up, he had a 40-acre homestead in Mars, and I realized Dad used to talk about this homestead. It's the first place Grandpa Orlie and Grandma Annie lived, right after they got married.
Dick's Haskin ancestors took that 500-mile trip from Wisconsin with my Carver ancestors.
I'm trying to picture this group, 148 years ago, plodding along in horse-drawn wagons. The trip could not yet be made by train, and I don't know how long it took, but I'm told it involved a great deal of mud. Now Dick owns Grandpa's old homestead in Mars. The Carvers and Haskins are connected by Hubbard blood and a shared community bond that spans at least two states and three centuries.
I wouldn't know any of this if I hadn't stumbled across a group of Dad's cousins and their cousins 25 years ago on the old dial-up internet.
Just a few years later, Grandpa's homestead application records for Mars showed up on Ancestry.com. Ancestry was still bare and sparse back then, so it was exciting to have this 23-page document materialize, like magic! And there on page five was Grandpa Orlie's signature.
We don't have even one photo of this man, but at least we know how he signed his name.
In these homestead claims, witnesses were called to say, "Yes I know this person, and he really has been living here for the last five years." The application includes several witness statements. They state that he has a house 14 x 16 feet, a barn, and a well. They conclude this is all worth about 300 dollars. He moved into the house on July 17, 1898. Susie would have been four months old at this time. The final certificate was granted on July 14, 1903.
The Time the Man Danced a Jig on the Roof
Dad's notes said that Grandma missed that 40-acre Mars homestead and wished they had stayed there, but he didn't know exactly when they moved. Was the next homestead in Spencer or somewhere else? I couldn't tell. But I did start to notice another modern marvel of the internet age: digitized newspapers.
The first digitized article I found was from The Spencer Advocate (1910, November 17). “Motion made by Theo. Knect seconded by W. F. Kloke that communication of Mrs. O. W. Carver be referred to Chief of Police Heenan.” p. 4.
Dad's notes mention an incident when he was a baby. Grandma was home alone with the kids one night when she heard somebody running around on the roof. It sounded like dancing. She grabbed a shotgun, aimed it toward the roof, and pulled the trigger. The dancing stopped, and the family could see a light, sailing across the yard and down the road. Several days later they heard a rumor that someone visited the doctor to have buckshot removed from a limb.
If you are a collector of family stories, here is something I need you to know: Never take an old family story like this at face value.
My dad was an honest man, but he might have been told a tall tale, so it was gratifying to be able to tie something from a newspaper to something from his notes. The place and time match up, and it’s clear that something happened - or at least that Grandma reported that something happened.
This story fits the mold of tales told from rural life about self-reliance and quick thinking, with titles like The Tale of the Intruder and the Shotgun, or The Resourceful Frontierswoman. These usually have drama and unexpected action and the intruder fleeing in terror. It's possible that Grandma told my dad this story many times, embellishing actual events with folklore to make a family legend worth retelling 100 years in the future. Or, perhaps it is completely factual, exactly as stated.
This was also the first mention I'd ever seen of my grandparents in a newspaper, and it cemented my addiction to hunting through old newspapers for family story information.
The last few years, scanning services have been digitizing newspapers at a rapid rate, and the latest AI technology makes it much easier to search through these digitized documents than it used to be, allowing for broad searches, like, "Hey, do you see Grandpa anywhere between 1903 and 1912 in these four counties, doing absolutely anything?"
You wouldn't word your search quite like that, but you could think about it that way and then reword it to make the computer happy.
Two news articles helped focus my search even further. The first was in the Atkinson Graphic, (1912, July 12). "Orlin Carver of Phoenix had the misfortune to lose his house and household goods last Friday night by fire. Mr. Carver lives on a Kinkaid homestead and the loss will be an especially heavy one for him." p. 1.
A quick look at a map showed that Atkinson is 41 miles south of Spencer in Holt county. Phoenix was harder to find, but an old railroad map showed it to be a postal stop a few miles south of Spencer. And that word "Kinkaid"? It's a flexible spelling of Kincaid, having to do with the Kincaid act. You can find information about this act on that famous internet I keep talking about. A Kincaid homestead could be as large as 640 acres.
The next article I found was in the Norfolk Weekly News (1911, Sept 11). p.1.
The article says that a married man with nine children named Frank Hamilton is in jail for alleged assault upon Susie Carver, a 13-year-old girl. He's being held until the next term of district court, and "both sides promise to produce sensational testimony at the trial."
Now I'm beyond curious.
First, is this our Susie? What other 13-year-old Susie Carver would be in this area at this time? Next, who is Frank Hamilton? All these years, we thought Susie went to that government school because of Grandpa. Was it actually because of Frank? And if so, please explain!
Over the years my genealogy research skills had matured, but this seemed like a job for a professional.
I contacted a genealogist in Nebraska who located preliminary court papers that included a statement from Frank Hamilton, covering what he says his wife Ruth would say if she were able to testify. (She was not able, because she was in bed, having just delivered an 11-pound baby boy.)
According to Frank, this is his wife's statement, paraphrased:
Mrs. Carver dropped by the Hamilton house and accused Frank of keeping Susie out all night. Mrs. Carver indicated that Frank did not harm Susie but added that keeping her out all night is against the law; however, the Carvers were willing to let the matter go if the Hamiltons gave the Carvers their prize grey team of horses. When the Hamiltons refused this offer, Grandma suggested the less valuable bay colts instead, and when that offer was refused, she stormed off, shouting threats such as, "I will make it hot for you" and "I will send you over the road."
Several things can be gathered from these court papers.
These are definitely my Carvers. I find first names of various family members throughout, including a subpoena for my eight-year-old Uncle Robert to appear at court. Whether he actually had to testify is unclear. But there is a receipt for reimbursement for his trip to town.
Nowhere in this paperwork does Frank deny keeping Susie out all night. What would Frank and Susie be doing out all night that would be considered acceptable? Clue me in!
I'm amazed the papers exist at all and frustrated that they are so incomplete. They don't say what happened at trial. And if I didn't have a lot of experience grading freshman comp papers back in the day, these handwritten pages would be impossible to read.
And now I have found my place!
That's where I left off in Episode Six several months ago. Thanks for helping me find my way back. For my cousins, you can find the first episodes on Facebook, or go to my blog here, where video links are included: https://carverhistorical.blogspot.com/search/label/TheSusieSituation
You'll see where I struggle with how much detail to include, try to decide how to introduce Kate and Melody, and experiment - sometimes awkwardly - with how much present day to mix with history. And now I'll keep going, struggling some more, but in the process, I'll be showing my work, and we hope that cousins will continue to contact us with additional information and even more questions to help guide our research.
Is it a final product? No.
Maybe I'll add it to a book later, or somebody 100 years from now will include it in a future book. But in the meanwhile, I will not be guilty of hoarding my research, and the family will know about Susie and her sisters, Florence and Sina - three ladies who left this earth way too soon, who really needed to meet more men, and whose lives were well worth noticing.
Here's a video where I tell the story of the jig on the roof, complete with sound effects. Why? Well, why not. I can't decide if the sound effects are fun, or just irritating. What do you think? Right now I could be persuaded either way.