SHERMAN HISTORIC SITES

PLANNING A TRIP TO THE HILL COUNTRY TO SEE THE WILDFLOWERS?
If you get close to Comfort, here is an opportunity to visit "my roots."


Welcome to Comfort Cloisters
http://www.comfortcloisters.com/propmap.html

Here is the link to the Comfort Cloisters—an historic location for many reasons. Although not yet honored by an historic plaque, a significant event occurred here:
On December 19, 1931, in the front bedroom of the cottage, a baby girl—Dorothy Charlton Sherman—was born under rather unusual circumstances.

Always the drama queen, I made my appearance there in the Methodist parsonage, rather than a doctor's clinic or the nearest hospital, because our family was quarantined. My eight-year-old brother was seriously ill with what was first diagnosed as diphtheria, but later identified as strep throat, both highly contagious in those pre-antibiotic days.

The family doctor, Dr. Charles Clinton Jones, performed an emergency tracheotomy on a card table in the living room, with my father, the minister, assisting, while my mother was laboring to deliver me under the supervision of the dr.'s wife, a nurse, in the bedroom.

In gratitude for the survival of both children, my parents named me Dorothy (for the medical couple's own daughter) and Charlton (a contraction of the Dr.'s two names). How many times have I explained that unusual middle name!?

So the cottage at Comfort Cloisters (then Gaddis Memorial Methodist Church) was my birthplace, as well as the place where I took my first steps, spoke my first words, and in general was the treasured baby sister for my two older brothers.

No wonder there are still wisps of "spoiling" hanging around my head.

I know this is TMI, but I love to tell stories.

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.