Edwin and Ella Corbley

I always wonder when I find information about infants that died and what the circumstances were.  My ancestor Edward Corbly that I have been researching had an interesting case in his history.  My ancestor, his daughter Julia was the only surviving daughter.  In the family bible though is listed a set of twins, interesting and conflicting information is found after that.  With children that died as babies or toddlers, often only family anecdotal information, or gravestones are available.

The bible looked to me as if the twins were born on September 4, 1860 and passing out of this life on September 4, 1862.  I normally would have assumed that they died in childbirth if i wasn’t for the 2 year gap (exactly 2 years for both making it very confusing).  For twins to die on their birthdate, and both on the same day seems highly unusual.  My g-grandmother then was born in 1863.3bf9fe0b-4b52-44f4-bc04-8332ee657c64

To add to the confusion, someone that has added the gravestones (no pictures) to FindaGrave, has added Edwin as d. 9/4/1862 and Ella d. 9/4/1892.  This is in Tomlinson Cemetery in Illinois (Champaign County).  There are no other records of Ella, including in the 1870 census, so I’m sure that the death date from her tombstone is a typo, with the family bible verifying this.  This is still a family mystery that is lost to time.d1d812da-69e0-4953-b54d-38f6cbd5bda2

Interestingly enough family lore has it that Julia went on to have a stillborn baby that was then buried in the copse of trees by the road on the old Eldridge homestead – land that went on to belong to my parents.  The story is that the baby was wrapped in a baby blanket and buried shortly after being stillborn.

Later I did do more research and after realizing that Ella and Edwin’s parents got married in 1861 I looked very closely at the birth date. I’m now sure it’s really 1862.  Stillbirth explains the mystery.

 

Religious Freedom….

As the question is raised time and time again recently I am brought back to the question I asked previously (http://myrootsrundeep.info/separation-of-church-and-state)…..

In history the United States was founded based on separation of Church and State.  A large part of the reasons for the country involved people leaving England because the King of England was forcing his religion on the people within the country.  Ultimately a new country was founded to allow for that freedom and to protect those rights it was expressly written into the constitution that the people were free to choose.  (And this means choose what religion they believe in without being forced to follow anther’s beliefs. ) To ensure this freedom the government. To gain these rights the people went to war with the King of England and fought for our freedom.

To ensure that these rights were maintained and separation of church and state occurred – some states put in place laws that no ministers could serve office.  My ancestor being the first minister thrown out of office as a minister because of this.  We currently have people making the news making the argument that – People that don’t follow their religious beliefs can just go to another county (if you read country hear we can just go back over 200 years)….

I too am really getting tired of hearing the said person’s name and hearing her all over the news.  I’ve even seen opinion pages comparing her to Rosa Parks (The page said let Christians move to the front of the bus)….  The author obvious knows nothing about Rosa Parks history….. 1. heIMG_0743r seat was in the colored section in the front of the bus. 2. she didn’t give up her seat because she was tired – it had nothing to do with moving from the back of the bus to the front.  The segregation case was Brown vs. the Board of Education and involved school busing to the ‘white schools’.

I do want to quit hearing this in the news, but I also want everyone to have equal rights under the law.  The current case going on isn’t a case of someone being forced not to practice her own religion – it’s a case of someone trying to force others to practice her religion.

Whatever you believe in….  I think everyone should agree that kindness to strangers and treat others and you would like them to treat you should play into this.  I can’t think of one person I know that would say they haven’t done something at one point of another that they would do differently if doing it again.

 

Separation of Church and State

In October/November of 1777  my ancestor Rev. John Corbley joined the House of Delegates for Virginia.

THE DISQUALIFICATION OF MINISTERS IN STATE 
CONSTITUTIONS 

By E. G. Swem 

As a step toward the separation of the church and state in 
Virginia, the convention which met in Richmond, on July 17, 
1775, adopted, in the "Ordinance for regulating the election of 
delegates," a clause disqualifying all clergymen of the Church 
of England, and all dissenting ministers or teachers from election 
as delegates, or sitting and voting in convention. 1 In the con- 
vention of May, 1776, which adopted a permanent constitution, 
the substance of this clause was embodied in the constitution. 
All those holding lucrative offices, and all ministers of the gospel 
of every denomination were declared incapable of being elected 
members of either house of assembly, or the privy council. 2 Un- 
fortunately, we have no report of the debates on this or any other 
subject in the convention, except as briefly mentioned in the 
journal. It will be observed that this disqualification applied not 
only to clergymen of the Church of England, but to members of 
every denomination. It is not fair to assume that this was in- 
serted from fear of the ministers of the established church only. 
There was as much danger from religious interference in the new 
government by over-zealous Baptist and Presbyterian ministers, 
who might get in the assembly, as from the others. The clause, 
because of its including ministers of all churches, must have re- 
ceived the support of all factions in the convention. 

*9 Hening, 57. 

2 9 Hening 117, Aritcle XIII. 


My ancestor was the first to be disqualified from the House of Delegates with this law….

The first minister to whom the disqualifying clause was ap-
plied, after 1776, was John Corbley, of Monongalia, who was re-
turned to serve in the House of Delegates, when it met in October,
1777. On being objected to, on the ground that he was a minister,
he was heard in his place upon the matter, and confessed himself
to be a minister of the gospel, but alleged that he received no
stipend or gratuity for performing that function. The fact of
receiving no stipend had no effect upon the house, for it was
resolved that he could not serve.

 

Though I believe in separation of church and state, I personally believe that separation is best to prevent undue pressure on any person by any group.  Every person has a right to their own beliefs. Laws in the government are meant to be based on a vote of the majority that follows the norms of society.  In our society currently a subset of the population is chosen to vote on the laws to govern.  I find it interesting that when first set up the government of VA excluded ministers. (I did find that in 1798 the constitution of Georgia was rewritten to give rights to religious persons – http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=77)

I haven’t researched it yet, but I am curious whether any state still discourages ministers from holding office?

Corbly Bible

Corbly Bible

Aunt Linda recently found the Corbly Bible. Copyright is 1867. It’s signed that it is the William L and Julia Eldridge Family Bible from 1897. Family births, marriages,and deaths are written in the Bible. I couldn’t find my father listed, but there is some pencil markings above where Buddy is listed that might be where he was recorded. Aunt Linda is also missing from the list – so it’s possible births ran over onto a page I don’t have a copy of. It’s really interesting that it looks like information from before Julia and William married is even filled in. Some even include weight… like Uncle Tom was 12 pounds and Aunt Norma was 8 pounds. I’d love to find the page that dad is listed on and see what he weighed! I was also surprised to see that my Aunt Ethel was 9.5 pounds. I did wonder if the people with weights listed were born at the hospital, since I’m sure some of my dad’s brothers and sisters were born at home (most probably). Next I need to take all these birth dates, marriage dates, and death dates and compare them against my files on ancestry.com…

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Julia (Corbly) Eldridge Obit

Julia (Corbly) Eldridge Obit

This article I think is for my great grandmother, but it has my grandmother listed as Mrs. Lester Richter. My grandfather was a twin – Lester and Wesley. I have to assume that the author got confused about which twin she was married to?

Julia Eldridge ObitLake Shore Woman Dead

A well known resident of the Lake Shore neighborhood Mrs. Julia Margaret Eldridge, 76, died at her home Sunday evening, February 19, 1939.

She was born Nov. 16, 1863. Before her marriage she was Julia Corbley. She was married January 5, 1882 and recently celebrated her 57th wedding anniversary.

She is survived by her husband William Eldridge and her four children, Mrs. P. B. Relos, Groverton, Ind., Mrs. George Henning Brownsburg, Ind., Mrs Lester Richter, and Ernest Eldridge, Fithian, and by 20 grandchildren, One daughter preceded her in death. Services will be 10 am Tuesday at Oakwood U. B. Church. Burial in Oakwood Cemetery, J. H. Cawthon and Son in Charge