Collins McArdle Family Bible

Collins McArdle

The earliest birth in the bible is Collins McArdle.  Collins parents who are my direct ancestors seem to be missing, making me think this is Collins (or his descendants) Bible.

Family Bibles

Family Bibles are a great place to find out information about Births, Deaths, and Marriages.  The family bible used to be the favorite place to record major events in any family.  This shows scans from the McArdle Family Bible (of the Collins McArdle) branch of the family.  Lots of great information is included!  I have the family Bible on my other side form the Corbly  part of the family (Dad’s Side), but these are from my mother’s side.  My mother is interesting in tracking down information about her grandmother especially.  Hattie Jane Mahaffey – wife of Elmer McArdle.

The History

Collins McArdle – March 20, 1833, the first birth recorded was my 3rd great uncle and born in Virginia.  His parents were Nancy Morgan and John McArdle. His brother Uriah was my 2nd great grandfather.  Uriah was killed from injuries he received saving his grandchild  from a run away oxen team. (The Daily Herald June 14, 1912). The McArdle Bible shown was from the Collins McArdle branch of the family, born in Virginia – moved to Illinois, and then moved on to Kansas.  Even being another branch of the tree, these Bible pages are still interesting!

Relating to My Branch

Collins McArdle was only one year in age difference from Uriah.  I would assume this would have made them close brothers.  My father has a lot of brothers and sisters and growing up in a small house, older siblings had to move out as new siblings were born.  My dad actually has a nephew the same age as he is!  As I follow Collins through the census in Virginia and Illinois Uriah is nearby throughout Collins Virginia and Illinois years. By the 1860 census, Collins has married and that is the beginning of the split. In the 1870 census, Collins can be found in Kansas, where he remained the rest of his life. Uriah, on the other hand stayed in Illinois in the same area that the family had relocated to from Virginia.

1850 Illinois Census John McArdle

1850 Illinois Census with John McArdle that includes Collins McArdle and Uriah McArdle

1850 Census John McArdle Family (Page 2)

1850 Census John McArdle Family (Page 2)

1860 Census - Collins McArdle Family

1860 Census – Collins McArdle Family – Illinois

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interestingly enough in the Kansas Census Electra McArdle Wygle is also listed as living with her husband Jacob Wygle and children near Collins McArdle.  Electra also being a sibling of my 2nd great grandfather Uriah.  Wygles have shown up on DNA results on the different bureaus.  The interesting thing is that she is hard to find in the census records as Electra McArdle.  In the 1850 Census she had already aged out of the household…. and any census before 1850 only would list the head of the household.  Electra is listed as Lectra McArdle marrying Jacob Wygle on 15 Jun 1848 in Iowa, so my thought is that Electra married Jacob Wygle and moved out west, ending up in Kansas.  As time went on a message might have been sent to her younger brothers that land was available in Kansas and to come join the land grab.

Most of Kansas became permanently part of the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. When the area was opened to settlement by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 it became a battlefield that helped cause the American Civil War. Settlers from North and South came in order to vote slavery down or up. The free state element prevailed.

According to records, scores of settlers came to Kansas after the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854.  The timing does work.  I’m not sure which side of the debate this part of the family would have been on, but it does seem that they may have moved to Kansas to join the rush.  Of course this is all conjecture… but, it’s interesting to think of the reasons that they may have moved out west, leaving friends and family at the time.

1870 Census Kansas

1870 Census KS – includes Collins McArdle and Electra Wygle….

 

 

Losing a Family Member….

Richter Family-1383-1It’s really tough to deal with the lose of anyone, especially a close family member.  A fried lost a parent and being the child though of a father that is currently suffering with dementia, you are in a tough place. I’ve mentioned before how tough it is to deal with the issue of others grief when you are faced with a parent that is being tortured inside their own body.  It’s bad form to respond in a fashion of – I’d trade places.  You want to try to explain how you are so happy that at least their parent didn’t suffer for a long time being tortured inside their body with a mind that doesn’t quite work right and can’t control their own body.  How great it is that they went quickly as opposed to suffered in a position of not even knowing who you are, while you visit to make sure they are being treated well – all the while wondering if the care facility is just getting them out of bed for meals and that few minutes a week or day you come visit.

Personally I will miss my dad when he is gone, but I also already miss him while he is still here.  There are so many questions that I would love to ask him.  Yet the main part of my conversation comes down to Does anything hurt?  Do you recognize me? Do you want a Pepsi today?

So we remain silent and simply say sorry for your loss….  And I know jokes are told to help lessen the hurt, but probably not taken well…..  It’s just a way to make it through the day, because I do miss my dad, especially when I visit and talk to him.

Another Father’s Day! – More Quality of Life not Quantity?

Another Father’s Day! – More Quality of Life not Quantity?

I’m hoping to come up to see dad this week… As I’ve mentioned my dad has dementia and has had many strokes….

Holidays like father’s day are a little hard, wondering how much he is aware of what day it is? I feel bad for my friends that have lost their fathers, and I also envy the friends that can spend the day with their fathers, and I am so glad my boys have a good relationship with their dad…. but I have to say beRichter Family-1174-1ing in the in between time….seeing your dad suffer through, you are happy you still have your father, but you are sad that your father is in so much pain and confusion. And you (and no one else) can’t make it easier.

My father is actually really young, only going to be 76 next week!  In my dad’s lifetime he has really done a lot and had a lot of funny stories, though he hasn’t been a huge number of places.  My dad did join the reserves in the 60s during one of the wars (or was that a military action)?  He was in California for 6 months for that, and I remember hearing about a trip to New Orleans, but other than that the only other trip I ever remember hearing about was my parents honeymoon – and that was the story of my father of my father talking his way out of a ticket in Georgia and inviting the police office up to their farm to go fishing!

While growing up, I remember the short trips when we were younger to places like Louisville (I got dropped off to stay with friends), Kentucky to pick up a dog named Waldo (we brought back Tobacco leaves to show for show and tell) and St Louis to visit cousins.  My dad also took day trips a few times to pick up cars and animals.

Most of my dad’s stories though involved highjacks he and friends had been involved in at one time or another, or things that had happened while farming.  My dad had an ability to tell a story that everyone loved to hear.  He had stories about everything from building a rock dam across the stream that is now by our house and flooding out the road to driving a tractor with wagon and having a semi try to pass him on a curvy road and lose control.

Dad also was always willing to help anyone that showed up at the door.  People would show up at all hours of the day and night stuck on the road and dad would grab the tractor and pull them out of the snow or mud. Presents would be dropped off, usually a bottle of alcohol – that my dad rarely drank, but sometimes we would end up with an odd thing like a Datsun once with the clutch ripped out.

Growing up dad would hear about or try something and think, oh I need to try that, and off he would go! With that he built a still once – I’ve heard stories about people lined up and even laying under the spicot!  Dad also heard about a man selling off animals and ran off and bought a Fallow deer at one point.  Several years later dad tried a Beefalo burger and decided to try to recreate them.  He and a friend drove across the state and bought two bison!  Each family got one.

My dad lost his mother, my grandmother, in his early teens.  She suffered for a while at home from cancer, and I know it affected him a lot.     My dad would avoid hospitals, saying people die there.  The story he once today, and that’s one he didn’t tell normally was that my grandfather brought in preachers to pray over my grandmother to try to get her better, but nothing worked.  Dad also wasn’t a church going person.  “If you just believe enough”.  All through the eyes of a child, it was hard on him losing my grandmother.

He went on to wreck a motorcycle in his teens and have massive head trauma.  My Uncle Tom was working in a nearby field and noticed, rushing him to the hospital.  My dad was lucky to have survived and had to go stay with my Aunt Dorothy for a while after to take care of him and recuperate.  Yet my dad did still manage to finish school high school.

He then went on to farming, starting with farming others land and working up to buying his own land with my mother after being discharged from the military.

Growing up my dad used every chance he could to play at the same time.  He was extremely inventive with farm machinery too…. I’ve always said we were lucky to survive childhood!  At two my dad made a go cart for me using a drill that was plugged in for a motor.  He would put us on sleds (as toddlers) and pull us behind lawn mowers through the snow, put us in the scoop of the tractor and turn it into a fair ride going up and down while spinning in a circle, and I’ll never forget the nails and things I ran through my foot running around the barn yard.  (The barn had a huge supply of food in it, ie. collection of bunnies)

My dad now only answers questions asked of him sometimes, speaking is difficult for him, and it’s hard to tell what he is really aware of.  He’s in an assisted living facility, which I’m sure to him is just like a hospital that he so hated.  The last time he was in the hospital and fully aware, he removed his own iv and tried to call for a ‘breakout’ ending up in someone else’s room.

So what do you do when you are in the middle ground?  The ground where no one understands except those that are there with you in the same journey? And like them, everyone’s journey is different – dementia takes every person at a different rate and if a different way.  With some you still see glimpses of the person that they once were, and with others you see nothing.  Do they know you?  Some like my dad have a body that is fighting them also.  My dad now won’t use one side of his body due to strokes.  That side of his body is atrophying.  Family may say, I want to remember him as he was, but they also would be the first to be upset if you voice an opinion that he might now want to live in the condition he’s in?  And what to do with the guilt many have allowing the thoughts to creep in that your parent might be better if they give up?  It not politically correct to ever voice those feelings….  and no one understands, those that have lost their parents to some quick illness or accident, especially don’t understand.

How do you explain that what you are really voicing is the fear that your parent is going through torture and your job has become trying to figure out the best way to increase quality of life and not increase quantity of life without them suffering?

 

Spending time with Family? Too Late?

Judy and Diane McArdle

Judy and Diane McArdle

My cousin Judy passed away last Friday. The story I remember best about her was one my mother told about Judy going to get her Phi Beta Kappa Key from the University of Illinois.  Judy was smart, VERY SMART, but she looked like a sorority girl.  The long bright red hair, Hawaiian shirt, and always ready to go out and have fun attitude.   Well, Judy got in line to receive her key, and was told by the person in front of her that she must have the wrong line!   Why?  Because it was an honor society, not a sorority.  Judy belonged there probably more that many of the people in line, but her looks, and maybe even the generation (and she was a woman)…. led her to be suspect to being in the wrong line.

Judy went on to get her PhD from University of Illinois in Clinical Psychology and work at Adolf Meyer Health center in Decatur Illinois up until it closed.   She originally wanted to work with kids, but the job was with adults, and every time she tried to quit they just kept giving her a raise.  (At least that’s the story she told us)…..  I remember calling her while I was working on my degree in Psychology at EIU in Illinois and asking about my plans as I questioned my career choices.  She talked to me and advised me “Don’t go into Psychology”.  I did go on and get my Bachelors, but taking her advice – I became a computer programmer even before I graduated and never used my degree – going on to get a Masters in Business.

The last time I had spoken to her, it was a while back, but she was evaluating workers for mental stability at the nuclear power plant.  I always assumed there would be more time to see Judy again. We plan to move home after we retire, giving us time to see everyone then……  but is it really.  Judy’s passing was a sad thing, and occurred way before it should have been her time to go.  It’s now impossible to turn back the clock and get more time…..

 

Dr. Judy A. McArdle, of Westville, passed away at 3:17 p.m. Friday, April 8, 2016, at her home.
She was born on Aug. 18, 1944, in Danville, the daughter of Frank and Ruth (Wilson) McArdle, both deceased.
Judy graduated from University of Illinois and received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and worked as a Psychologist. Judy had a passion and love of animals. She was always rescuing strays and a supporter of the local humane society. She had four cats who were family, Gracie, Wolf, Opal, and Tom-tom, and encouraged everyone around her to rescue animals. Not only was Judy a brilliant academic, but a supporter of the arts. Judy loved to draw, listen to music, and was a voracious reader. She was a runner, mushroom hunter, horse-back rider, and had a green thumb that could grow anything. She will be missed by all, especially by friends in Decatur.
Judy will also be dearly missed by her brother, Gary McArdle of Westville; her sisters, Diane Saddler and Brenda Erickson, both of Danville; her nieces and nephews, Dr. Tracy McArdle, Dr. Amber McArdle, Brock McArdle, and Jenna Maxian, whom she was extremely proud of and of their accomplishments and was a huge advocate for education.

Source: Commercial News, Dr. Judy McArdle Obituary 4/11/2016

Name Tags at a Family Reunion?

My family has a ‘family reunion’ every year.  It’s basically a family party with extra people…. and we do have a BIG family.  The party has moved around to different houses throughout the years and been hosted by different people… The earliest I remember were at my grandfather’s pond, then on to my Uncle Franks, my cousin Buddy’s, my Aunt Margaret’s, and on to my cousin Don’s.

Who comes to the events also changes and as time Karla, Kevin,Margaret, and Linda Richter Family-1640goes on we have gained and lost family members.  This year though I caught myself having to ask my mother more and more to identify people (and I am afraid to admit, she had trouble on several).  I still know the family that I grew up with, and I so want my kids to know their kids, but as time goes on and we meet once a year – it becomes harder and harder to keep up.

I should also mention that for us the trip is 6 hours each way, always now on a Sunday during a weekend after school starts up here in Kentucky.  The longest we can stay and still get home for bed time is about 1 or 2 hours.  This last year I literally had to run from a conversation as I saw my husband and son heading to the car to leave without me (I’m 98% sure they wouldn’t have).

I remember one of my children replying that it wasn’t a big deal to miss a family trip as he wasn’t familiar with the people we were visiting.  To me these family are only distant in location…..  I so want my children to have that close tie to family, yet with miles between us all, how do you maintain that?