And he's gone . . .

"Barking up the wrong tree"

So back to family history . . .

My grandpa called me last night to ask me what I new about Mary Dwyer.  I said, "not much" and promised I wasn't hiding any kind of secret information from him.  My aunt Lori has done lots of research on Mary Dwyer and I have read some of what she's found, but that's it.

I spent an hour or more last night and then some time today seeing what I could find (even though he did call Lori and got copies of what he was looking for).  I showed him what I found and, honestly, it did bring up a few new thoughts that I need to run by Lori (about Mary Dwyer and some other Huber ancestors).  I took notes while we talked.  I will follow up.

During our conversation, though, Grandpa stopped and said, "maybe we are just barking up the wrong tree."  Huh?  From the look on my face, he sort of laughed and said, "you know, maybe we're looking in the wrong place or looking for the wrong things."  He then recalled one time when he went to visit his aunt Helen and asked her about Mary Dwyer (who would have been the mother to her half brothers) and she got a little upset and said she wanted nothing to with Mary Dwyer.  Without Mary Dwyer, my great grandpa Huber and therefore my Grandpa Huber would not exist.  He agreed that we need to keep looking and wasn't implying that we're doing something wrong.  I don't really know what he meant, though.  At least I have a new phrase to use . . . "barking up the wrong tree."

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So, for the record, what do we know about Mary and Clara Dwyer?

• Mary is of Irish descent and lived in Chicago.  She came to Utah shortly after Clara was born.  Conflicting sources say that Clara was her niece or her daughter.
• Mary met and married my great-great-grandpa Albert Huber around 1900 and they had 3 sons - Albert, Edward and Harvey Dwyer (Dee)
• Mary died in 1906 and shortly thereafter Albert married Lenora (Nora) Peterson and they had 2 daughters - Gladys and Helen.
• Mary is buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.  Albert and Nora are buried in Bluffdale.  Clara is buried at Mount Olivet.  
• There are no records of Mary Dwyer anywhere.  The only way we know her parent's names are because my Grandma Ethel Huber had an old Bible that she had written a sort of pedigree in and on that chart had written the names of Mary's parents.
• What we do have is a couple of newspaper clippings (that Lori found) which stated that a wealthy doctor in Salt Lake had hired Mary as his housekeeper and had made her neice, Clara, his ward.  Upon his death, Clara recieved $2000.  Mary married Albert shortly after this doctor died.  His funeral was a big to do at the Masonic Temple on South Temple.
• No one knows who Clara's father was.  No one knows if Mary was her mother or not, though we think she probably was.  Mine and my grandpa's theory is that she told the doctor that Clara was her niece because having an illegitimate child may have been unmentionable and could have compromised her job.  Clara referred to Mary as her mother.
• Once before she died (in 1962), my Grandpa took Clara home from something and remembers her saying that Mary had red hair the color of my Aunt Cindy's.
• Albert was a bartender, a miner, prospector, gambler.  He was such a small man that he always carried a pistol on his belt for protection.  There were stories that he would chase guys out of the bar by shooting at their feet all the way out and up the street.
• Clara was married twice - first to Frank Leonard and then to Ilet B. (I.B.) Powell.  She's buried next to I.B. at Mount Olivet.  There is a census record as well as a newspaper article) that indicates a third man - Fred Hoffer - was also living with Clara (while she was married to Frank and to I.B.).  Who is this guy?  No one knows.  He's listed on the census as a brother-in-law, but there is about a 40 year age gap that debunks that story as well as not ideas about who the sister or sister-in-law may have been.

So, the biggest mysteries are that we have absolutely no information about Mary's line.  Though we have what we think are her parent's names, it stops there.  Second of all, who was Clara?  Was she really a niece or was she a daughter and who was her father and who in the world is Fred Hoffer (this guy, my grandpa does vaguely remember as a white-haired guy who lived with Clara and I.B.  He also remembers Ethel searching for his grave at City Cemetery and not being able to find it.  Lori and my grandpa did find it on this last Memorial Day.

Valentines Day

Single or attached, I am not a super fan of Valentines Day. I do have three pretty cute valentines at my house, though, and tonight we had a fun family holiday adventure.

We drove in town to the Rio Grande Cafe. We haven't been there forever and it was delicious as usual. The kids were very well behaved and ate their dinner.

Next, we walked over to the trax train and rode it to city Creek. We visited the Disney store, crossed the bridge, looked atthe fountains, said hello to cousin Travis at Deseret book (and used the Deseret book bathrooms) then headed back to the train.   

Molly said she wanted to see the planets so we decided to also walk through the planetarium.  We had fun playing with everything there.

As we finally walked back to the car the kids started to melt down but then one out of two fell asleep on the way home.

Some days are challenging. My work is challenging. James' work is overwhelmingly time consuming and last night he was covering for someone on call and ended up in Ogden until about 2 in the morning. Jack never wants to hold still and Molly is often a ticking time bomb of emotions. Days like today are blessings and very much appreciated. We still came home to a messy house and have a lot to do this weekend, but I have a good family.

January Flew By

January just pretty much flew by.  I can't believe it is already February.  Here are a few tidbits of what's going on in our world.

I don't like these stupid carts.  I found this picture on the internet. The one at the Reams where we usually shop is green.  We can't seem to avoid it.  My kids always find it despite my attempts to direct them elsewhere.  It doesn't steer correctly.  It doesn't hold all my groceries.  Plus, inevitably, I end up pushing the stupid thing without kids even in it anymore.  Grrr . . . Oh well.  I think I will survive.

Jack needed some new socks, so I ran in to Kohls.  Molly found the manaquins while I was checking out.  Sometimes this girl is a little bit strange.  When I asked her what she was doing, she just described the clothes they were wearing.  "Mom, this one has flowers and this one has a pink shirt."  I don't know if she even noticed that they didn't have heads.  

Jack has been sleeping better.  He finally got through his most recent stage of non-sleeping-screaming-bloody-murder.  Unforuntely, his and Molly's room is a bit extra cluttered because he is only sleeping in his pack-n-play next to his bed.  Something in his bed has upset him for life.  Oh well.  It works, so that's what we're doing.  The two of them did find a use for the crib the other day (it was cute even if it only lasted for a few minutes).  Mother Hen Molly loves to read books to Jack, but he usually doesn't hold still for very long.

They both love to play outside.  We have a couple of different "mountains" in our cul-de-sac that are pretty fun to climb.

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On Martin Luther King Day we ventured to the zoo and lunch with this gang.  We had a fun time! 

During January, this big kid even celebrated his 7th birthday and we had some delicious eats at his house.

Molly went to the dentist.  She got a cape and a load of other prizes.  Our dentist is totally over the top with dress-up, prizes, and overall happiness.  It's really obnoxious for this mom, but it works and this girl has been an angel both times we've gone.  

And finally, our January has been full of talk and excitement about this kid leaving for Lithuania in a few short weeks.  He's a goof ball and we're going to miss him, but I'm glad he's going on a mission. 

I read 2 Books

I don't read much, at least as far as actual novels are concerned.  I try to read at least one book a year and in the last few months, I have read 2 (thanks to being able to read on my phone and letting James drive everywhere we go as a family).

Since I am so proud of myself, here are my mini book reports.

Custer Survivor by John Koster

I read most of this book while traveling to Huntington Beach over Thanksgiving Break.  I remember one summer growing up when we went on a road trip to North Dakota for a conference my mom was attending and one of the stops on the way home was at the site of the Battle of Little Big Horn.  All I remember was grasshoppers, dirt, hot temperatures, and lots of complaining while we waited in the car for what seemed like hours.  We were waiting because my dad was having this historical moment standing out in the field trying to re-create Custer's last stand in his mind.  

I honestly have zero recollection of learning anything about George Custer between that summer and when I started teaching U.S. History.  It just simply wasn't a time period or story I was interested in.  Teaching about Custer's impact on the Battle of Gettysburg taught me a little and this book may have actually changed that more.  It was really interesting!

Basically, by 1876 Custer had lost his heroic touch.  He'd sort of began going blind and crazy before he sent his men to fight the Sioux and they all died.  He had no idea how many Indians he was even up against, his men and their horses were exhausted, and he was just too cocky to make a different decision.  History says that all of his men died in a matter of about 1 hour.  This book tells the story of Frank Finkel.  He charged at Custer's command, but his horse was sick so he was near the back of the pack.  His horse was wounded, then he was wounded, but the horse just kept on running.  Eventually the horse collapses and dies and Finkel wanders around for a few days before running into some mountain men who nurse him back to health.  When he finally returns to civilization, he reads a newspaper account of the battle and sees his name listed as one of the 100% who died.  Thinking he would be executed for desserting, he just decides to blend back into society and never mentions his story until years later.

The book tells Finkel's story and then looks at the validity of the story and if it was possibly true or not.  At the end, you are sort of left to decide for yourself what you think about all the evidence the author has given you.  It's quite interesting and I would recommend it if you like to read historical non-fiction books (which is basically the only genre I ever manage to get through . . .  yes, I'm a nerd).

Master Detective by John Reisinger

I had heard of Charles Lindbergh, of course, and had heard of his child being kidnapped.  This story relates to that, but is much more interesting.  Lindbergh was living in New Jersey at the time and one of the nation's greatest detectives was also there.  His name was Ellis Parker.  He solved every complex crime in New Jersey for years and was chronicled in newspapers as the "Sherlock Holmes of America."

The first half of the book talks about all of Parker's many cases that he solved and though it got a little dry towards the end of this part, most of the stories were very interesting.  He was an expert at what he did and was able to get people to confess or get into their heads to figure out what they did better than anybody.  The second half of the book gets a little upsetting.  For reasons that are hard to understand, this great detective (and seemingly nice family man) gets tangled up in the Lindbergh case (years after the kidnapping) and it ends pretty badly for him. 

Parker was working as a detective during a time period when police work was not really regulated or organized in the United States.  There were only county or city police forces and J. Edgar Hoover had just barely been hired to run a federal agency (not even called the FBI yet).  When the kidnapping happened (1932), Parker wanted to be involved and felt shunned that he wasn't, but there was a brand new New Jersey state police trying to use it as their first big case and they basically muddled up the whole thing.  With Parker's limited access to details of the investigation, he still came up with who he thought did it.  When the state police arrest who he thought was the wrong guy (and eventually try and execute him) Parker goes to extreme (and illegal) lengths to put his own suspect out there instead.  It doesn't end well.  It made me a little sad.  The author is not sure why he ended up doing this or what he really thought was the truth at that point.  You get to decide for yourself.  It was a good read!