James Lane Video – Amanuensis Monday

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Don Taylor

James LANE Video – Amanuensis by Don Taylor.

[In the 1970’s the Howells (Clarence, Shirley, Mary, Peter, Martha, Jerome, Libby, Elizabeth) & the Darlings (James & +Jane Darling) met with James Lane at the Pittsburgh airport. That meeting was video taped by an unknown person.  The video tape has been
converted to DVD.  Copies are with Don Taylor and Jane Darling. The first part of the video includes background music and family videos of Jane, James, and their father Robert Harry and their mother Florence (Drexl) Darling.  This
part of the video has no voices.

The second part of the video is the Howells and Darlings meeting James Lane. The
quality of the audio is extremely poor at the recording was done with the built in mike while at a busy airport. Initially, the meeting and everyone meets. Virtually none of those meetings are discernable. Then Gray Beard (Clarence Howell) talks with James about a bit of his family history.  He speaks of Roanoke Island and of Frank Armstrong.   Then James Lane talks with Jane & James Darling about his past with their father Robert Harry Darling. Everyone leaves but the video continues on with James Land talking about important places in Pittsburgh where the family lived. He speaks while at each of the locations. 2800 Burg, 2700 Pleasant, and Arlington Ave.  The transcript of the
video is below. My comments are identified by brackets in the below text.]

At the Airport

Gray Beard Speaking.

[His Father was] First pastor on the eastern coast at a place called Roanoke island.

One Sunday morning there were six of his congregation that were normally at the service but were missing one Sunday Morning.  Later that that day he ran into Allen Bigit  [?] and  asked where they were.   They said they went across the sound over to
Nag’s Head and helped those crazy kids from Dayton launch that contraption
they’ve got over there.

I remember as a child going back, my parents were born in
other parts of the state, were Springport, Telegraph agent that sent the telegraph.   – That happened before I was born. They were the stories my father told. … They were.

I also have another family connection with [???] My first cousin was Frank Armstrong. My middle son is named after him.  He was in the Army Air Corps…  and the Army Air Corp took over and flew the airmail. My cousin Frank had Denver and flew to the coast.

He went on and made a career in the Army Air Corps which became the Air Force. I don’t know if you remember during the movie Twelve O’clock high. That movie character was
based upon him.  He flew the first B17 raid.  The last the [B}24 raid over Tokyo.  He survived the war and after the war he was in commander general of the 4th.
of northwest and Alaska.  He & Byrd Balkin [?] did the first flight over the North Pole.  [Note: Frank Armstrong flew in the first daylight bombings over Germany and the last conventional bombing over Japan.]

[James Darling asked:]

My dad said something about learning how to fly or flying –
did you teach him.

[James Lane:] No- I missed him on that.

Open cockpit – two seater or something

Yeah. He was around

How old were you when you started.

      18-19- How

      It all started with a moter boat with

[There is an exchange between Jerome & Libby with James
Lane wherein he mentions something about machining candlesticks that they have.]

[James Lane]

I’ve been in Pittsburgh all my life, except when I was in
school in Cleveland for five years in Cleveland.  Most of my family was here though.  Many years we lived in the same place.

[James Lane] – I’m the last yet.  Even some of the next generation is gone
now.  Born in 1910 –

[Jane Darling  – Dad
(Robert Harry Darling) died in 1969.

[James Lane} – I remember that.

[Jane Darling – He died of leukemia.  It a lot of years ago.

[James Lane] I remember it like it was yesterday.

[Jane Darling]- He didn’t live in Pittsburgh very long did
he?

[James Lane] – In his early life all of it. Was he was
married in Pittsburgh. Yea. He was just a year or two older than me. We used to
hang out – ice skate. Together. All kinds of things.

  [Jane & James
Darling leave to catch a plane. Video shifts to outdoors]

On the Street

James Lane Speaking.

2800 Burg Ave.  The place where Peter McAllister brought his family from Catasauqua, PA.  Catasauqua on the Lehigh Canal. Lehigh University is right handy to Catasauqua.  He built this place a date I don’t know for sure but it can easily be figured out.  Somewhere in the 90’s I imagine.   This place just over the knoll leads down to the river to the Jones and Laughlin Steel mill. This place at one time had a stable in the back. In the late 90s or
early zeros.

Location was up over the hill and then down the other side
to the Mill.

[The mill is] absolutely dead. But not town down yet.

2700 Pleasant Street [??] . McAllister & Family move there 1900 . James born in that house in 1910. Plenty of rooms. Double house exploded in the middle there.

From there Grandmother went to East Liberty.  East end part of Pittsburg.  She had a store there.

In the meantime, Hanna or Anna died.  While grandmother still had the store and was
buried there  Shortly after Anna died,
grandmother McAllister took Anna’s two children Elizabeth and Harry [to
England.]

Arlington Ave. Grandma’s last store.  Elizabeth and Harry went to school from this
location.

Mount Oliver school Elizabeth went to business school and Harry
went to business school from here. Grandma came here after her wartime trip to
England. Across the water and back during the war.

The store has been abandoned for 20 or 30 years,

That apron in the front was the last place I saw Peter
McAllister, my Grandfather. Last time I saw Peter was at this location. In the
20’s or yep or early 30’s at the latest.  [Note: Peter returned to England in 1921.]

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Bio – Hannah McAllister Darling White

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Don Taylor

013 – Hannah McAllister – (1886-1913)

Darling-Huber Research
Darling-McAllister Line
By Don Taylor

Photo of Anna (Hannah) McAllister Darling, circa 1910.

Anna (Hannah) McAllister Darling, circa 1910.

Hannah McAllister was born in England on 15 August 1886.  She was the fourth of six children — four boys and two girls.  At the time of her birth, her father, Peter, was probably in the United States establishing himself and preparing the way for his wife and children to come to the States.

By 1889, Hannah’s mother and siblings joined her father in Catasauqua, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania.  By 1900, the entire family moved to Pittsburgh.  Sometime in 1905, she met Rufus Darling. She was eighteen and he was forty-seven.  In March of 1906, they had a daughter, Elizabeth Grace Darling.  Family history states that there was a rift between Hannah and her father. Certainly, a granddaughter born out of wedlock from a man more than twice the age of his daughter could cause such a rift.

It appears that Rufus and Hannah kept separate households during that time, he in Chicago and Hannah in Wheeling, West Virginia. In December of 1906, Hannah became pregnant a second time. This time Rufus married her, so on 16 February 1907, Hannah and Rufus were married in Kittanning, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, a small town about 40 miles northeast of Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River.  Family history indicates that she changed her name from Hannah to Anna so that she would be “A. Darling” and became known as Anna after that.   An interesting side note is that Elizabeth appears to have modified a copy of the Marriage Certificate to indicate that Hannah and Rufus were married in 1905, thus legitimizing her.  Family history indicates that this may have been a cause of disagreement between her and cousin Katherine Lane.

In August of 1907, their son, Robert Harry Darling, was born in New Kensington (about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River), Pennsylvania.
In 1910, Anna was living with her two children, Elizabeth and Robert, as a roomer at the home of Robert & Emma Hennig at 2219 Ward Street (Ward 4).

Anna and Rufus divorced by 1911, after which she married Thomas White. Anna died on 15 July 1913 at the age of 26. Family memory holds that Hannah was buried where Thomas White was later buried at Chartiers Cemetery. At her death, her name was recorded as Annie White.

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Y-DNA Test Results – Post 3: The Howell Test & Results

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Don Taylor

Previous Y-DNA Post: Post 2: The Test, Results, & Roberts Connection

After the success I had with my Y-DNA test, my wife was excited to find what she could. I explained to her that we could only do a mitochondrial test on her. It would give a broad brushstroke of her maternal line; we knew that her great-grandmother emigrated from Switzerland around 1903 and not much more. She was interested in her paternal side; family tradition held they come from Wales; however, there was no proof. Anyway, we convinced her brother to take the test. Mother was a little upset and concerned. She thought we were accusing her of a dalliance with the milkman and questioning her virtue. We finally convinced her that we were only looking for what we might find several generations in the past.

Ancestry's map of Europe showing the range of "The Stonemasons."

Ancestry’s map of Europe shows the range of “The Stonemasons.”

Brother Jerome took the test, and after what seemed an interminable amount of time, the results came back — Haplogroup I1, what Ancestry calls “The Stonemasons.” It is sort of an odd combination of Scandinavians and Mediterranean people. The map Ancestry provides the people coming out of Africa to Scandinavia, then to the Mediterranean, and then back to Scandinavia. All that is well and good, but the real purpose of taking the test is to find a close match – and there was. A person with the same last name showed up with a most recent common ancestor (MRCA) in only six generations. So the search was on for the common ancestor. Unfortunately, it was not an easy task. The tree I have for my wife’s line traces ancestors into the early 1800s. The cousin’s tree goes back to the mid-1700s. Ancestors from both trees (Jerome’s and the match’s) were in Virginia in the early 1800s. I found no matches between the trees on first names, though.

I worked on pushing my wife’s family history back another generation. I do not know a name yet, but I am getting close. A couple more bits of information to sort out and ensure which one of several Howell family heads is my wife’s 4th great-grandfather. What I do know is.

Unknown Howell
Born:  Unknown.
He died about 1817 in Buckingham County, Virginia
In 1805, he lived in Charlotte County, Virginia
He had at least four children, a girl, and three boys. The daughter married (1819-1820) a man whose last name was “Holman,” and they moved to Alabama about 1821.

We know Mr. Howell was not religious, so he is unlikely to appear in any Bible or church records.
Trying to track him down among all the Howells in the Virginia counties during the times is grueling work.

However, once I find that common ancestor, I will have a new tree of descendants to explore. The cousin does not appear to have anyone in his tree that died in 1817. I have looked carefully at the match’s tree and our tree, and there is no possibility of a common ancestor in seven generations on his tree and six generations on our tree.

I have not been particularly pleased with the MRCA generation suggestion by Ancestry. In the cases where I have been able to trace back the number of generations suggested, none of them have been verifiable. Admittedly, it is only three connections, but I expect an 87.5% likelihood of a match within the suggested MRCA generations. I guess her family is in that remaining 12.5%. I will see what turns up when I have another DNA hit.

Update: Reformatted and gently edited in October 2022.

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Robert Harry Darling

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Don Taylor

Darling Research

Robert Harry Darling, Circa 1932

“Harry” was born on 18 August 1907 and was the second of two children of Rufus Harry and Hannah [Anna] (McAlister) Darling.  It appears that Rufus and Anna separated shortly after Harry’s birth.  In any event, in 1910, Robert was living with his mother and sister, Elizabeth Grace Darling, at 2219 Ward Street, Pittsburgh, PA, with Robert & Emma Hennig and their three children.

Anna died in 1913 when Harry was only five years old, and his father was absent, so his grandmother, Margaret McAllister, took the two children in to raise them.  In August 1915, it was necessary for Margaret to return to Cumberland County, England, to settle a family estate issue. However, the family story is that Margaret was determined to see Rufus’ children civilized by an extended stay in her home country.  She and the two children traveled aboard the SS New York, which was an American Line ship. Transatlantic passage was very dangerous in those days; it was only three years after the Titanic’s ill-fated maiden voyage.  World War I had already begun in Europe, and German U-Boats were on the prowl. The sinking of the RMS Lusitania occurred three months before this journey so there was a great concern for their safety.  The three travelers remained in England for over a year, so Harry and Elizabeth attended school while there were there.  They returned safely to the States in December of 1916, intending to live in the Brookline neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

Any hopes Harry & Elizabeth may have had of reuniting with their father were dashed when, in June of 1917, their father, Rufus, died. Elizabeth’s (Betty’s) memories of her father were vague at best. He was away on “business” most of the time but remembered lots of presents when he returned.

In 1920, Harry and his sister lived with his grandmother, his uncle John W. McAllister, along with his wife and two daughters 411 Arlington Avenue, in the Mount Oliver neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Also living there was his uncle, John Darling, and his wife, Emma, and their two children,  *Cousin 1 and *Cousin 2. Today, that area is a rugged, unbuildable, embankment above the railroad tracks just a few blocks from the river and the steel factories of the day.
On August 10, 1926, eighteen-year-old Harry married Nora Adaline Glies in a ceremony performed by Edward Carter, who was a Baptist minister, in Wellsburg, Brook County. West Virginia. Wellsburg is a small town on the Ohio River about forty-five miles west of Pittsburgh.  Both Harry and Nora lied about their ages and indicated that they were twenty-one on their marriage license.  At that time, West Virginia required a parent to pay the Marriage Bond for parties marrying under the age of twenty-one.  That marriage didn’t last long and they divorced sometime in 1927.
Harry and Florence were married sometime in 1929 and in 1930 lived in a $60/month four-plex at 110 North Fremont Street, Ross, PA.  With them was a boarder named William Doll.  During that time, Harry worked as an automobile salesman.  In July 1930, Florence gave birth to a daughter, *Girl 1.  Florence passed away in 1934.  Family history indicates that Elizabeth was living with them at that time.

In September 1938, Harry and Mae Reno were married by a minister by the name of Charles Smith. This union produced three children, *Girl 2, born in 1939; Robert Harry, born in 1940; and *Girl 3, born in 1941.  Family history says that sometime during this period, he fathered a child with a nightclub singer and had a child named “*Girl 4.”  No information has been discovered at this time.

It appears that Harry and Mae were divorced in 1942, so Harry became eligible for the draft. He enlisted in the Navy on 23 November 1943. He did not see combat, only serving at the Naval Hospital in San Diego.  He was discharged on 8 September 1944, before VE and VJ days.  It is understood that he was discharged due to a mental breakdown; however, his discharge papers indicated that his discharge was honorable and that he was eligible for reenlistment.  His physical description at discharge was 6’0″, 155lbs, Blue eyes, brown hair, ruddy complexion, and a birthmark on his upper left breast.

It is not clear when, where, or how Harry met Florence Drexl, but by 1945, they had a daughter, *Girl 5, who was followed by a son, *Boy 2, in 1946.
Video: Memorial Day 2016 and added to this post on 9 Jun 2016

Harry died on 22 January 1969 and is buried in Cadillac Memorial Gardens, East. Mt. Clemens, Michigan, which is about 25 miles north by northeast of Detroit.

* Mentions of “Cousin”, “Girl”, and “Boy” refer to living individuals.
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Mom crewed on the S.S. Milwaukee Clipper.

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Don Taylor

Matrilineal Monday
Maritime Monday
By Don Taylor

Photo of Don Taylor with cat Nasi.I was recently reading one of my favorite blogs, Marian’s Roots and Rambles. Her article was about “Any Sailors in the Family.”  I was a sailor and did 10 years of active duty in the US Navy, but more interesting, I learned recently that my mother was a sailor as well.  She mentioned that somewhere or another she had gotten “seaman’s papers.” (I’ll have to look and see if I can figure out how to get a copy of them.)  She worked on a ferry boat on the Great Lakes.  In the early 1950’s she cooked aboard the SS Milwaukee Clipper. The ‘Clipper was an auto/train car (and passenger) ferry that ran between Muskegon, Michigan, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She cooked and baked in the bread department and lived shipboard a season.  Of course, I was astonished and amazed.  It provided her with a place to stay (albeit cramped), meals, and money to send back to her mother to support me.  I had no idea.

S. S. Milwaukee Clipper passing sand dunes at entrance to the harbor, Muskegon, Michigan.
By Boston Public Library [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

I went on to find out that the S. S. Milwaukee Clipper is still in existence. The ‘Clipper is a National Historic Landmark and dockside in Muskegon, Michigan. Their website explains a lot about the ship and its history. Built in 1904 as the Junita she was sold and completely overhauled in 1940, where a new steel superstructure was installed, she was fireproofed, had AC installed to the staterooms, and other comforts were added. I am sure that the crew quarters were tight.

Anyway, it was a fascinating side trip into a bit of my mother’s history that I had no idea about.

 

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