Finding the Fritchers

I am always tickled when I hear people say “Start your genealogy journey by writing down what you know about you, then your parents and then your grandparents.” Wow, that seems simple enough doesn’t it? But for some, it just isn’t that easy. With the exception of those children that are adopted most of us probably do know that “basic” information. But getting beyond the basic can prove to be difficult, if not impossible. Enter that stomach-turning, anxiety-creating term…. The Brick Wall. I think everyone that researches their family tree long enough is bound to find at least one brick wall. But perseverance, creative thinking (and researching) as well as endurance will help to break through and hopefully break down those walls.

Basic Information

Some years ago when I began digging further into my mother’s family I quickly hit  just such a wall when I asked “What are your great grandparent’s names.” Oh the blank looks and the sounds of crickets….Lots of crickets.

At the time my mother was truly disinterested in my blossoming hobby but she did endure my endless questions and constant prodding for information. Like most people, I missed the opportunity to give my grandmother “the quiz” about family connections and the millions of things that I have wanted to ask since. It didn’t help that I lived nearly a thousand miles away….but my mom did mention in passing that I was trying to find out about the relatives. At this point my grandmother was in the nursing home and not doing well. But one of the other ladies in the home piped up and said that she knew who the relatives were and she had a newspaper article about them. Away she went to dig in her stash and she returned shortly with the aged  newspaper clipping. “Daniel and Angelica Davis went to visit…..” so the article said. Yay! I jumped for joy at finding the names of my great great grandparents, heck, even my mother was excited. With this piece of information I thought that it would be easy-peasy from here. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Mislead by Misinformation

As I continued to search for information about Daniel and Angelica I was excited to find another story about them that noted her maiden name as Fletcher. I was so thrilled! This was just too easy.

Yes, it was too easy. After searching and searching and searching for information about the Fletcher family, I couldn’t come up with a single shred of information that moved my research forward. I absolutely could not make a connection to my Davises with this Fletcher. It just didn’t fit any of the information that I knew and could prove. Then a breakthrough. I found the obituary for Angelica’s son, John Davis which led me to some additional records. No big deal except that Angelica so kindly and quite proudly used her maiden name as his middle name. John Fritcher Davis. Fritcher, not Fletcher!  Thank you Angelica for leaving me a breadcrumb just as I was ready to give up on what I thought was a lost cause. Ugh! A long ago newspaper error cost me nearly a year of fruitless searching because I didn’t stop to think that it would something other than Fletcher.

 

Back on the Path

This simple correction in the surname was a defining moment in my research. More than just an “Ah Ha!” moment…it made me re-examine much of the research that I had already conducted and re-verify what I took as “fact”. Once I felt confident that my prior work was solid, it was time to move forward and find out when and where Angelica had died. I knew that Daniel had passed away suddenly in 1888 but those being the days of floral prose in the newspaper and no death certificates I will probably never know what the “old pioneer” succumbed to.

Angelica has never been easy. Never. I looked high and low for information about her and her husband Daniel. Ultimately, I discovered that his grave was on the top of the hill in the cemetery of my mother’s hometown. She had no idea that her great grandfather had been buried there all this time. When I had the opportunity to visit mom and take her to his grave, I thought she might actually cry at the thought that she had decorated all of her other relatives graves over the years but not his because she didn’t know he was there. But Angelica? Where was she? Are you kidding me? There was no stone next to Daniel and in front of Daniel was John Fritcher Davis, his wife and two of their daughters that died as children. The torment continued.

 

Working backwards to go forward

Nearly two years passed from the time that I located Daniel’s grave until I finally determined what became of Angelica. Census records gave scanty clues to her living with several of her children after Daniel’s death in 1888. Then she seemed to disappear. I was beginning to expect nothing less of her. Elusive. Secretive. Sly and shady.

So it was time for a new tactic. Carpet bombing genealogy. My term for researching EVERYONE connected with the person you can’t seem to find. Neighbors, friends, relatives, offspring. EVERYONE. By damned it worked! I determined that Angelica had a brother named Simon that lived in Boone, Iowa and that is where she ultimately died in 1913. Her body was taken back to my mom’s hometown and she was buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery. The service was conducted by the Methodist church. The previous sexton to the cemetery said they had no record of her burial (not correct) and the records for the Methodist church had burned (I am not convinced). But once I had the newspaper article about her death from Boone and then the obituary from the hometown paper I knew that I had struck gold, as it were. Finally! The new sexton of the cemetery confirmed that 6 of the 12 lots in the Davis plot were filled….Daniel, John, Alice, Cora, Florence and ??? buried next to Daniel. Well, we weren’t going to open the grave and I had to decide that there would never be any proof positive. This was as close as I was going to get to proving that Angelica was sleeping next to Daniel. I was happy, happy, happy.         Sort of. Kinda.Maybe.

 

How could this be?

So, here lies Angelica Fritcher Davis next to her husband, unmarked and unknown. BIG sigh. Who knows how this happened or why. All I knew is that it needed to be rectified.  Last year my cousin arranged a family reunion to take place in late summer and with the help of my mom, an uncle and another cousin; we put together the funds to buy her a headstone and have it placed the weekend of Mother’s Day. Ninety nine years after Angelica was laid to rest next to her husband and by her son, daughter-in-law and two of her grandchildren; she now had a marker of her own. I can’t explain the satisfaction that I felt when I first saw it. The journey was incredible and difficult. Hell, it was frustrating to say the very least. But I didn’t give up and somehow I would like to think that she would be proud.