I was recently reminded of when my grandpa Richter passed away. I wasn’t very old, without looking it up, I’d say maybe 2nd grade or so. I do remember other things from when we would visit him, but the day we lost him is not one. I have heard stories though and from memory I wanted to put them in writing. I’m hoping everyone will correct me so that I can get the ‘story right’ in all my family history files.
My grandfather had a live in housekeeper that was taking care of him at the time and grandpa Richter had been outside. As he entered the house through the back porch door he had fallen half in the house, half out. When the housekeeper found him she called my father (We had moved to the old Abraham Illk house that was 1/2 mile down the road) and my dad came with all of us and checked my grandfather. From what I remember my grandfather had died of a stroke or a heart attack. Now with my father having so many issues with strokes, Aunt Margaret and Uncle Frank had aneurysms I think, and even Buddy had a heart attack – I’m wondering if there is more family history I haven’t documented.
The main things I still remember about my grandpa were him giving me the crust from his pot pies – he would sit at the table in the kitchen and give me the crust. I also remember him keeping Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies in the Living Room and giving me one when I would visit. Both these and Concord grapes (there was a grape vine in the front yard) remind me still of going to grandpa Richters and exploring.
I also have a memory of the family party where my father spanked me before the party and said he knew I was going to do something to deserve it later so he figured he’d get it out of the way ahead of time… We had just pulled in and parked in the driveway.
Grandpa also had a pond that Aunt Linda now lives at. There was a place to cook out and an outhouse and lots of places to explore. My memories of family parties there are missing from before grandpa passed away, but I’m sure they happened. I do remember though the parties at Aunt Tooties. We would make a slide out of her stairs with couch cushions and ride down the stairs and then go outside to play with turtle heads the cousins had caught. Snapping Turtles keep biting long after the heads are detached and for kids playing in the country the heads plus a stick could keep us amused for quite a while.
The outhouse is all gone now, and all the family parties have moved locations several times since then. I can’t even picture my kids playing with a snapping turtle head or running around the woods unsupervised. My kids have had their moments of going up and helping grandma clear woods and feeding chickens, but it’s not a normal occurrence. Their outdoor time is more riding bikes and taking walks around the blocks.
It’s funny, this picture came up with Juanita Cheuvront filled into the title when I added it, but the actual name in my files is Frank, Tootie, Howard, and girlfriend. I have no idea where the name Juanita Cheuvront came from. This is one of those things that remind me that it’s always good to write things down when they happen! In this case I should have recorded the source of the name when I found it out. Is it written on the back of the picture, in the album, or did one of my relatives tell me. Without source information it’s the equivalent of ‘iffy’ information. It makes a lot more work to verify the info.
My Aunt Tootie is still around and may be who gave me the information. If I get a chance I’ll have to ask her. I did just google Juanita Cheuvront name and Danville Illinois. A Michael showed up who graduated from Danville High school. He is listed as 57 so it seems there is a large age difference between him and what my Uncle Howard would have been. My Uncle would have been 18 in 1940 – where Michael was a 1973 graduate, so he is definitely young enough to be my uncles children’s age. If he is a sibling of Juanita there was a huge age difference, more even than my dad and his siblings.
As the extra person isn’t one of my family members, for genealogy it isn’t really required to know who the extra is, but the more information the better – otherwise information gets lost over time.
My dad was in the reserves shortly before I was born. This is a small picture of him I have in my files. I think it’s the only one I have of him in uniform. I remember my dad never wanting to camp out and he would tell stories about finding snakes in your boots when he was in the reserves. His other comment was always “We live in the woods, why would we want to go sleep in it”.
I’m still not big on camping, as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that as a child we had plenty of chances to practice camping out. Storms where we had no power for a week. No power meant no water, no water meant no toilets. Living in a subdivision there is nothing like living in the country. Even when the power goes out we can flush the toilets and run water. Imagine having to melt snow to get water to flush the toilet. Even the camping sites I’ve seen now have access to regular bathrooms.
Now my parents have a generator, but I remember my dad doing his best to work around by hooking a tractor up in some way to run a few little things. We always had a huge gas and a huge diesel tank in our yard for extra fuel.
After a few years we swapped to heating the house with wood, wood was always something that there was plenty of around the yard. We had our own log splitter run by a tractor and would have to work to split wood most of the summer to have it for winter. The wood burning furnace was hooked into the duct work with a blower (blower didn’t work with the power out). We also had a fireplace and a wood burning stove though. For long power outages we could move down and sleep in the living room to be near the heat.
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…
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?
Lake 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
