St. George Devil Pups Win Awards

So many of our Devil Pups win awards at their AFJROTC Awards Night.  Here are the cadets from Pine View High School that I was able to grab for photo op after their awards.  Braxton is holding his Devil Pup challenge coin which he carries in  his pocket.  Alena (to my right) won so many awards, she hardly got to sit all evening and someone else is holding them during this photo op.  She had a perfect PFT score at Camp 2018.

 2019 Pine View Cadets/Devil Pup Graduates

2019 Dixie High School Cadets/Devil Pup Graduates

Where's Bridget O'Toole?

I'm looking for Bridget O'Toole, born about 1827 in Clifden, Galway, Ireland.  She married Owen Lacey, also born in Clifden, Galway, Ireland.  I'm not sure if they immigrated to the US when their daughter, Winifred, immigrated about 1863.  Traditional thinking would say "Yes, because the daughter was only 10 years old."  The daughter settled in South Dakota, but I have yet to find the parents, Bridget and Owen.  I'd like to find Bridget, obviously because of the O'Toole name, but this is a name in a tree I'm working on for some San Diego O'Connors.  It would be fun to connect our trees!

It IS you!!

GenealogyBank

1885 Jan 25, Daily State Sentinel, P1, Indianapolis, Indiana

He Revealed Himself

A gentleman who had courted and married his wife in full beard and lived for ten years with her endowed with the same hirsute adornment, quietly determined to have it cut off.  His wife found it difficult to recognize him, and she sat staring at his strange appearance for some time.  “Well,” he exclaimed, “have you got nothing else to do but sit still?  I suppose you expect me to do all the work, while you loaf, as usual,” he snappishly said.  “Why, it is you, after all – I knew you the moment you spoke,” she replied.

My Prayer for You

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; 
the Lord lift up His countenance upon  you, and give you peace.
Num 6:24-26

The Dead Sea Scrolls were, until recently, our oldest copies of biblical text.  But in 1979, Villanova professor, Judith Hadley, was assisting archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, in excavating a site in Jerusalem's Hinnom Valley.  In a burial cave, she saw something resembling the metal cap of a pencil.  It was a sensational find, a tiny silver scroll of great antiquity.  Another was found nearby.  These tiny amulets, dating to the Hebrew monarchy seven centuries before Christ, were so small and fragile they took several years to painstakingly clean and open.  When scientists finally unrolled them, they found the world's oldest extant copy of a biblical text, the words of Numbers 6:24-26.

While the amulets date from the seventh century B.C., the original words are far older, coming 1400 years before Christ.  As the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, the Lord commanded the priests to bless the people with this three-fold blessing.  (Excerpt from: Then Sings My Soul by Robert J. Morgan.)

Today one of my favorite hymns is this biblical text set to music by Peter Christian Lutkin (1858-1931).  He was born in Wisconsin to parents who had emigrated from Denmark in 1844.  In addition to his position as Dean and Director of Choirs at Northwestern University, he also served as Professor of Theory, Piano, Organ, and Composition in the School of Music, 1895-1931 and Director of the School's Department of Church and Choral Music, 1926–28. (Wikipedia)

Isaac James Parks

My great grandfather, Isaac James Parks
8 Dec 1849 (Indiana) to 26 Feb 1904 (Iowa)

married Mary Catherine Ortman 
20 Feb 1869 in Wells County, Indiana



14 children (3 did not survive childhood) all born in Iowa

His mother and father:
James Galloway Parks (1791 - ??) and
Eliza Jane Clevenger (1809 - ??), both likely died in Indiana

My Aldridge Puzzle

I am looking for a Catherine/Katherine/Katharine (unknown maiden name) married to an Aldridge who may have married my 2^nd great grandfather in their later years.  Katharine was born in Maryland in 1788, but in 1860 she is widowed and living in Delaware County, Indiana.  I have found court records of a divorce between her and a James Parks who is possibly my second great grandfather.  I’m not yet sure this is my ancestor (who is James Galloway Parks, born 17 June 1791, supposedly in Virginia, possibly West Virginia - or not!)  Can't find his parents, either.

My James G. Parks was widowed after the death of my second great grandmother, Eliza Jane Clevenger (first husband Isaac Thornburg) Parks, possibly about 1863. Eliza was born in Ross County, Ohio in 1809 to John Thomas Clevenger and Nancy Maria Stothard.  As a widow of Isaac Thornburg, she married James G. Parks on 13 May 1845 in Delaware county, Indiana.  James was 55; she was 36.  (Their son, Isaac James Parks (1849-1904), was my great grandfather.)

I haven’t been able to find the death date/place of either James G. Parks or Eliza Jane.  Eliza probably died around 1863 or earlier, and the James in the court documents married a Katharine Aldridge 19 May 1863.  I have searched for Katharine’s maiden name (using all different spellings) and have come up with some possible former husbands, one being a Mr. Handley, and the other Edmund Aldridge who is the only Aldridge I can find in the Delaware County, Indiana area during that time period.  But I can’t find her maiden name.  I’ve not found any marriage records on Katharine other than the marriage record of 1863 in Delaware County, Indiana, to a James Parks, as well as the court proceedings documenting a not-very-amicable divorce and restraining order situation in the 1864-1867 time period.

Would appreciate any assistance on the Aldridge name in Delaware County, Indiana.

1866 Divorce, Politics Style

1866 Apr 2, Richmond Weekly Palladium, Richmond, Indiana

A woman in Pennsylvania has petitioned for a divorce “because she and her husband do not agree on politics.”  If that disagreement be valid grounds for a divorce, what shall we do if females are given the elective franchise?