HAIR

For my mother — Gladys Fern Hedges Sherman— the birth of a daughter six years after her second son was an answer to prayers—prayers so intense that she had at least one "false pregnancy" during those years of waiting. Oh, she dearly loved her sons, “Sonny Boy” (Robert) and “Bubs” (Lloyd), but as a seamstress whose skills would have carried her far in fashion design, her fondest wish was to have a little girl whom she could "dress up."

When I was born on December 19, 1931, her prayers were answered (almost). I was a healthy, precocious, baby girl. I immediately began to charm my brothers, who were old enough to be susceptible, but not old enough to be indifferent. My father, Val, did not spoil me (although some would say otherwise), but he was a tall, godlike presence from day one — especially on Sundays when he stood even higher in the pulpit. Nothing pleased me more than for him to come in the house and scoop me up to his eye level; I almost felt that I was flying up there, and from the safety of his strong arms, I could look smugly down at my brothers reaching up to embrace their father’s waist.

It was an idyllic picture with only one flaw—the baby girl with the soft smile and pensive eyes was almost totally bald. My oldest brother had brown hair in respectable quantity. My second brother had blonde angel ringlets thickly covering his cranium and cherished well after boy-hair cutting time. But the long-awaited daughter had little to none.

My mother was not deterred. She stitched away, dressing me in fashions copied after what the most-highly-placed baby girls wore at church and in the women’s magazines. She did not go to fantastic lengths to assist my hair to grow (even though later, when I had enough hair to work with, she did use curlers and curling irons occasionally). But my pictures don’t lie—up until I was over two years old, I had less hair than a Kewpie Doll.

This fact was brought home to me yesterday when I was going through some old scrapbooks. I found a picture of a large group of children on the front steps of a house that did not look familiar. I did not recognize it as a parsonage or the dwelling of some family member. When I detached the photo from the page and turned it over, I found my mother’s handwriting: “Annie Weatherby’s Birthday Party; Dorothy in Dorothy Jane Little’s lap.” I believe the location was either Comfort or San Saba, Texas.

Okay. That’s clear enough. Although there are actually three little girls in other children’s laps, it was not hard to pick me out. I was the one with the ears sticking out and less hair than the others. But when I showed this three year old girl to my husband, he said that it couldn’t be me—it was a boy! Look at the short hair. Only when I pointed out the fancy collar on my blouse and my long white stockings did he recognize that it was indeed his present wife.

By the time I was five, I had a reasonable amount of hair, but I did retain a somewhat boyish appearance. At the kindergarten celebration of George Washington’s Birthday—an elaborate presentation that included play-acting and dancing the minuet in hand-sewn period costumes—I was chosen to be one of the Georges in knee pants, rather than a Martha in long skirts with a bustle.

Perhaps that was when the theater bug bit me.

But the cross-dressing must have marked me, for, to this day, I really am more comfortable in pants than in skirts. Yet, as my hair thins with age, I sadly suspect that I may leave this life as I entered it—bald!

Making Plans for Others, Dorothy Sherman Schmidt ©August 2009

In August of 1949, my father, Val Sherman, hatched one of his schemes for a travel adventure. This one was not a cross-country pilgrimage for himself; instead, he set in motion a series of steps that would send my mother, Gladys, and me, Dorothy, age 17, half-way across the country.

I’m not sure why he did not include himself in this elaborate plan. He could not have thought that Mother would be thrilled; she was not an eager traveler at best, but usually would do anything or go anywhere Val asked of her. Perhaps he had intended to go, but his pastoral duties kept him at home there in Edinburg, in the Rio Grande Valley of deep South Texas. Whatever the reason, he stayed; we went.

It came about in this way: Shortly after the onset of World War II, while we were living in Del Rio, my father had purchased a new maroon Dodge sedan. But after four years of driving hither and yon in the extended church parishes made necessary by the wartime shortage of ministers, the Dodge was beginning to totter. Daddy was ready for a new vehicle.

He shopped for one in a Buick dealership only a block away from the First Methodist Church in Edinburg. As was his custom, Daddy bought from his parishioners whenever possible. And H. B. Smith was a member of the church. The backlog of new car buyers which had accumulated during the war meant that dealers were short on inventory, and deals were difficult. But to “help out the preacher,” H.B. offered to make arrangements for the new Sherman car to be picked up at the Buick factory in Flint, Michigan. This allowed him to discount the price of the car by the $300 dollars normally charged for freight and shipping. Daddy jumped at the deal, which probably represented a sizable discount on an MSRP of about $2750.

The cost of going to get the car would probably not exceed $200-300, so that meant a cash savings and an opportunity for someone to see a good portion of the American heartland. That was such a good deal that he jumped at it. And I was excited, because with my two older brothers in the service, and my younger brother only 13, I was the only other available driver. And I was not my father’s daughter for nothing—I was just as hard-wired to crave travel as he was.

Poor Mother didn’t have a chance. She could drive, but not necessarily cross-country, so my skills and adventuring spirit were needed. Daddy’s plans didn’t stop there. He arranged that she and I would catch a ride with Dr. Hamme and his wife (also parishioners) who were taking a road trip to see relatives in Tennessee. Once that first leg of the trip was complete, we would catch a bus for the remainder of the journey to Michigan, pick up the car, and then mother and daughter could drive the 1800 miles back to Edinburg in the comfort of the new car.

Never one to leave any detail to chance or to let other schedules interfere, my father contacted Mr. Hodges, the vice-president of the local college (surprise— a parishioner, too!) and made arrangements for me to register late as a first term freshman at Edinburg Regional College (later Pan American).

And away we went. The tale of the journey is for another day, but my father’s benevolent manipulation on this and many other occasions are deservedly family legends.

I've often thought that one of the keys to SW Sherman might be finding out how and where photographers of the day received their equipment and training, but I literally don't know where I would start to do that. I suspect he went to high school in the Memphis area, because Aunt Eva said that he was an avid reader of the classics, at least as long as his eyes held out.

She told of SW sitting close to the wood stove for warmth, with a lamp for light, and reading far into the night, even after a day's work on the farm. I wonder though, whether he might also have occasionally hired on at the shipyards in Seattle, especially since SW is absent as "head of family" from Coos Bay for the 1910 census—and since Val was employed at a shipyard as a teenager when he decided to enlist in the Navy.

Lots of stories to look for.

1850 Census shows Henry D. Sherman and Mary (Ellen Hawkins), married in 1846, living together in Shelby Co., TN with child named Mary (or Mark Hawkins, age 6 in household, but not identified as relation of either. Not likely to be younger sibling of wife because of age of possible father of M.E.H.—could be her own child either from previous marriage, or out-of-wedlock—she would have been sixteen at birth of child, and I suspect that if it were Henry's, he would have given it Sherman name, since birth dates and actual marriages were not too rigidly consecutive in those days. Another neat clue and mystery to solve.

Small Successes

For some reason, I had trouble pasting my post into this space, so I have used a do-around and inserted today's entry as a comment.  Please excuse my ineptness, and check the comment to find what I really wanted to put in this space.

Just when I think that I've moved up one notch in my search, I slide back two!  Even though I am pretty well convinced that Henry D. Sherman and Mary Ellen Watkins are my g-grandparents, some of the information that I have found (but not yet verified) may be upsetting to other descendents of this line.  Since I will not be satisfied with less than the truth, I feel that I am committed to sharing that information--even though I jumped the gun with my first family tree posted on Ancestry.com.  I listed a lineage that went all the way back to England, but I mistakenly included Adam Sherman as my g-g.  I have since made that tree private so that I can use this blog to explore my findings.

So here I am, having found Henry and Mary in the 1860 census (and also having found four entries on the 1860 Slave Schedule).  This was not a surprise to me, given the times and the location of their lives.  Sherman was almost as common a name in the South as "Smith" was in the North.  Since our line is well-represented among farmers in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, it would have been more startling if our ancestor had joined the Union cause.  

There are a number of Shermans buried in battlefield cemeteries, including one in Chatanooga identified only as Sherman, with no given name or birthdate, so I am going to follow that clue.

But if the event that so embittered Samuel W. was not being orphaned by the Civil War, but some more personal occurence, that may be cause for dismay…

Why mention it now?  Simply because I am still searching for the event that caused grandfather Samuel William to be so reluctant to talk about his family's past.  

It's Easter, and I found the golden egg!  It's Christmas, and my stocking runneth over!  It's March 5, and I have found my great-grandfather!  Well, maybe not totally, but I have nailed his identity.  Awww, all right, I didn't— but a friendly genealogist at the downtown Mahon Library did.  After twenty years of my desultory poking around, she took only thirty minutes to bring a book off the shelves, entitled Marriages in Shelby County, Tennessee, 1820-1888, compiled by Edythe Ruckeer Whitley.  And there it was: item 532 on page 11—the marriage record of Henry D. Sherman and Mary E. Hawkins on March 2, 1846.  Incredible!

Then she produced an index to the 1860 US Census (which I had looked for a number of times) and there it was: in Madison, TN,an entry for Henry, now age 33, Mary 32, Ellen (Ella) 10, Edwin 8 and Thomas 6. Little Samuel would be born in 1861, and Lulu in 1863, and sometime after 1863, the parents died, and by 1870, according to that Census, the surviving children were living with their uncle, Adam Sherman, at Stewart's Store in Mississippi.  Then Samuel and Lulu moved in with big sister Ella and her husband William L. Manly, where they are found in 1880.  It all fits! Maybe the time spent with Uncle Adam was difficult, and that's why we always thought that Sam had been raised by big sister Ella.

Just goes to show that sometimes the answers are right under our noses, but we have to have a trained smeller to find them out.  I need to verify these sources, but this indeed looks very, very promising.

Family lore had someone named Henry Sherman going off to fight the Civil War.  Guess it was G-Grandpa.  Now, if we can find out what happened to G-Grandmother Mary, we will be well on our way to establishing the bare bones of our heritage and get down to the fun stuff of finding out the "rest of the story."

My long silence does not indicate inactivity—rather it is the result of non-productive activity.  Would you believe I have searched the occupants of fifty or more cemeteries in DeSoto County, Mississippi that are listed online?  Then I contacted the County Historical Society to ask for assistance in locating Stewart's Store, the precinct (or parish) in which the 1880 listing for Adam Sherman also includes 18 year-old Samuel, his brother, as well as Adam's son Samuel, age 4.  The census also lists his sister Ella, so I am trying to find out more about her, and the man from that vicinity that she married, William L. Manly.

But the response from the history group was that they did not have information about that location, but would continue to investigate.  One bright note is that when I typed in Stewart's Store on one genealogy site, a map popped up with an arrow indicating a spot just north of IH 69 and just west of US Hwy 51 N.  I quickly emailed my contact, but have not heard back whether that helped find that area. 

Since Adam (or Adsn [legible penmanship did not seem to be one of the requirements for 19th century census-takers]) was listed in both 1870 and 1880 US Censuses, it seemed possible that the location of their farm (his listed occupation) might be a clue.  Perhaps it could have been where Samuel W. was born, since it is just south of Memphis.

Anyway, that is the assumption that I am following at this time.

Aaaargh! Frustration! How does one find the missing link?

  Just when I thought that I had found our missing great-grandfather Sherman, I realized from the dates that he would have had to be 80 years old when my grandfather, Samuel William Sherman (1861-1937), was born.  Not impossible, I guess, but surely not likely.  So it looks as if the Adam Sherman (1789-1868) I found could have been a gg-grandfather, but I am back in the databases available online, looking for someone with reasonable dates, probably named Samuel or Adam or William, and born somewhere on a continuum from Tennessee/Mississippi back to Rhode Island.

I  only wish that I could nail down this Sherman line, so that I can begin hunting for more of the fun stuff like tall tales and legends and homesteads and occupations. 

Family legends are the "meat" of family history for me.  Oh, it's fun to wander through the pedigree charts and browse names and namesakes, but the real measure of a family is the web of truth and fantasy that is woven when its members tell their stories. 

One of my favorites comes from mother's side of my family and recounts the tale of a young girl orphaned in Georgia by a smallpox epidemic, adopted by the doctor's family, and subsequently brought to Texas. I'm not sure if they came in a covered wagon, but when I wrote the story in my collection, COMING OR GOING, that was their means of transportation.  So, Great Grandmother Annie Bolton Hedges, if that's not really how you got here, you'll have to send me an ethereal email with corrections.  My version is the way I have always envisioned the story, having only bits of oral history to draw upon, and that is now how future generations will remember it (unless I receive corrections).  

One mystery that has prompted my sporadic genealogical searching over the years has its beginnings in my father's line.  In the South, Sherman has not been a much-revered surname, because of the arsonist tendencies of William Tecumsah, the general who laid waste to so many Confederate cities during the Civil War.  My father's knowledge of his Sherman forebears was incomplete.  He only remembered that as a child, when he questioned my grandfather, Samuel William, the response was only a terse, "Let sleeping dogs lie!"

But that was enough to trigger my need to know.  Was SW being secretive because we were related to the infamous torchman?  Or was there some crime or atrocity associated with the fact that Samuel William was orphaned at the age of six or seven? Without even knowing the given name of my great grandfather Sherman, the trail was cold indeed. 

Complicating the matter was the fact that census records were housed in the Memphis, Tennessee courthouse, which was burned by Gen. W. T. Sherman. How's that for a really ironic twist to the story?

Anyway, these posts will be primarily concerned with my search for the missing links in the Sherman lineage.  At this point, the finding of Samuel William's brother Adam, in an 1870 Mississippi census just across the stateline from Memphis, (by a Sherman cousin Leslee in Oregon) has opened possibilities that are promising.

Even if Sherman is not a surname in your own line, or you are one of those who think genealogists should get a life of their own, I promise that you will find this account of my search filled with interesting stories of what was and what might have been.

Some people get into genealogy in hopes of finding a famous ancestor, but the lure for me is the search.  Looking for a lost ancestor is the electronic equivalent of searching for the  Holy Grail--even if there is no reward at the end, it is the process that inspires.