EPIDEMICS

It is winter in Northeast Ohio and that means the flu is in full force.

Is it an epidemic?

According to Dictionary.com an epidemic is: "a temporary prevalence of a disease."

In the United States, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) decides if a disease has reached epidemic proportions.

On January 12th, the CDC declared that flu had reached epidemic level in the U.S.

Flu activity from the Center for Disease Control
dated 20 January 2018.

While a major inconvenience to many of us, the flu will prove fatal to some. 
In today's Medina Gazette, the Medina Health Department said there have been 10 deaths due to the flu, so far this season.

Which leads us to epidemics of the past.

Most of us have wandered the rows in cemeteries and paused when we see family members who have all died around the same date. "What happened here?", we wonder.

Oftentimes, what has happened is an epidemic.

Epidemics have been around for millennia. This Wikipedia article traces epidemics back to the 5th century, B.C. 

Since most of us cannot trace our ancestry back that far, today we will look at the epidemics that have plagued Medina County in the last 200 years.

MEDINA EPIDEMICS

 1833-34 Asiatic Cholera - It is thought that it arrived from Europe with immigrants. Rufus Ferris died as a result of trying to bring treatment to prisoners at the Ohio Penitentiary.

1839-40 Dysentery - this is extreme diarrhea caused by eating contaminated food or water. Often caused by inadequate sanitary conditions around outdoor toilets.

1853-54 Dysentery

1852 - Small Pox

1855 - Variolia *(Small Pox)

1843-44 Malignant Erysipelas* This disease afflicted Wadsworth Township people very hard.

1848 - Malignant Erysipelas*

1850 - Measles (from mortality schedule)

1859 - Diptheria

1863-65 - Cerebro-spinal meningitis

1900-1915 – Typhoid Mary  - Luckily, Mary did not work or travel further east than New York. But hers is an interesting case to look at.

Mary Mallon, also known as "Typhoid Mary" carried typhoid fever 

wherever she worked as a cook. Once she was identified as the carrier,

she refused to stop working and changed her name. She probably

infected hundreds and caused the death of as many as 50 people.

Only once she was quarantined did she stop infecting people.

Photo courtesy of WikiCommons.

1916 - Polio

1918-1919 - Spanish Flu - Started during World War I and spread quickly by troop movements. Had a devastating impact on everyone.

Medina Gazette article from 18 October 1918 showing three Medina soldiers deaths from Spanish Flu.

Schools closed and businesses shut. Even the draft board suspended the draft until "the epidemic has been stamped out."

1952 – Polio

1962-1965 – Measles
Nowadays, an epidemic often results in the development of a vaccine. As this 1969 Gazette  article shows, it can take years to create the cure.

Medina County Gazette 19 August 1969, page 2.

1981- Present – AIDS

1989-1991 - Measles
2009 - H1N1 virus

        

*Variolia is another name for small pox and erysipelas is a contagious skin infection.

Luckily, with modern sanitation and the use of antibiotics, many of the above listed diseases are things of the past.

          

SOURCES:

FLU MAPS Center for Disease Control
Ohio History Central
Cleveland Influenza
Cholera
History of Medina County and Ohio  (1881)

Kathy Squared...

Kathy Staufer
Medina Library Teen Library Associate

In 2017, Kathy Stauffer joined the staff at the Medina Library Adult Reference desk. Kathy S. has been kicking around the MCDL library system for 16 years, working at the Lodi Branch, leaving for awhile to pursue her art,  returning to work at the Seville Branch, moving to the Lodi Branch and now, she is here in Medina.



Kathy is a wonderful addition to our Teen Department staff with her low-key personality and artistic talents. Besides our first names, we share a number of traits: premature grey hair, and fair coloring. Which means we have similar wardrobes and often show up to work similarly dressed. We share similar interests. We are about the same age. And of course, we work at the same place.

Eliza Stauffer's tombstone is broken into three parts.
Old Cemetery, Rootstown, Portage County, Ohio.

One day, I mentioned to Kathy that I have Stauffer's in my family tree, too. Back in 1850, my 4 X Great Aunt, Eliza Tagg, married Lewis Stauffer in Portage County, Ohio. She died in 1852, and I have not been able to trace Lewis Stauffer after that to see if she had given birth before dying. Spellings of the Stauffer name often vary according to the record - I was not put off by the different spelling.

Kathy was not particularly impressed with the connection.

But then she pipes up with "My husband isn't really a Staufer anyway. His father was born with Grandma Julie's first husband. But when she remarried, her second husband, Felix Staufer, adopted both of her sons and so their names changed to Staufer." She related the story of how the younger son died in an train accident. Grandma Julie told Kathy that her first husband's name was Miller, but Kathy's husband said that wasn't right and gave Kathy his biological grandfather's true surname, which Kathy couldn't remember.

And that is all it took for me to start researching the family. Kathy S. was unclear on specifics and I wanted to know more about the train accident.

1934 Cleveland Ohio Directory
From Ancestry Library Edition

 A couple of quick searches on Ancestry LE and the Familysearch.org website turned up some entries in the Cleveland City Directories for the 1920's and the younger son's death record - from an automobile accident. But strangely, nothing was turning up in Census records.

Robert Staufer's Ohio Death Certificate, dated 14 May 1933.
Ohio Deaths 1908-1953 at Family Search.

Digging a little deeper, I searched the online index to Cuyahoga County Marriage Records for Grandma Julie and found it.

Marriage record of Grandma Julie and Felix Staufer, showing her first husband's surname.
Ohio County Marriage Records 1774-1993 from Ancestry Library Edition

And voila! Grandma Julie's first husband's surname was ---- Petrash - a Slovak surname which has been Americanized to Petras in my in-laws branch of the family.

So, if Felix Staufer had not adopted Grandma Julie's two young sons, we would be...

Kathy Petras²

Kathy Petras and Kathy Petras or Kathy Petras² 

Isn't a weird and wonderful world that we live in??

Medina County History Fair at the Medina Library

Calling all Medina County History geeks!

On Saturday, January 27th seventeen different Medina County historical and genealogical societies will be hosting tables at the Medina Library for the 3rd annual:

Get a peek at all the unique, quirky, interesting and historical artifacts and trivia about Medina County from 17, count em', that's seventeen different groups. (Bet you have never heard of some of them!)

For the city of Medina, the focus this year will be on Medina's Bicentennial. Meet with Roger Smalley and get a preview of all the great events that are planned for Medina's 200th Birthday.

Or stop by the table for the Northeast Ohio Railway group and see some of the equipment that was employed on the area's railroads.

Meander over to the Medina County Historical Society and see what items Tom Hilburg has brought to share. Do you know what each was used for?

Remember, Saturday, 27 January from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

See you there!

(Yes, the Library will host a table that tells how we can help you with your research!)

Gretna Green

Recently I was reading the newsletter from the Trumbull County Genealogical Society (thank you Theresa Brown!) and discovered an article on "Marriage Mill" towns.

As "responsible adults", blacksmiths conducted marriage ceremonies
in Gretna Green.  It is still a popular  custom to get 
married "over the anvil" 

According to Merriam-Webster, a
marriage mill is "a place where it is possible to marry with a minimum of formality or delay"

Historically, Gretna Green in Scotland was supposed to be the first and the most famous of the "Marriage Mill" towns.  It is believed that it started with Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1754 which made the marriage laws of England and Wales more restrictive than the laws of Scotland. In Scotland, males as young as 14 and girls as young as 12 could get married without their parents' consent.  They just needed to declare their intentions in front of a responsible adult. So, it allowed for anyone to conduct the ceremony as long as there were two witnesses.

The United States has its share of "marriage mill" towns too, though none as famous as Gretna Green. Greenup, Kentucky, right across the Ohio river where my father's family lived was a very popular marriage destination for Ohio elopers. And I have heard from various genealogical resources, that Ashtabula once was popular.

One of the many wedding chapels in Las Vegas. This one specializes in
weddings officiated by Elvis Presley

Basically, any town on the border with a state that had more restrictive marriage laws could become a "Gretna Green." Some locations played up their reputations offering package deals that would include meals, flowers, rings and in some cases, a motel room.



The article went on to list these marriage mill towns:
Arizona  - Yuma
Arkansas - Marion, Crittenden County
Idaho - Coeur d'Alene
Indiana  - Angola, Crown Point, Jeffersonville
Iowa  - Nashua in Chickasaw County
Kansas  - Belleview, Johnson County
Kentucky - Greenup
Maryland - Chesterton, Elklton, Rockville, Garrett, Hartford, Howard, Kent
Minnesota - Moorhead in Clay County, Waukegan in Lake County, Winona County
Missouri - Liberty, St. Charles
Mississippi - DeSoto
Nevada - Washoe County
New Mexico - Curry County
New York -  Harrison County
 Ohio - Bowling Green in Wood County
Okahoma -  Love County (maybe just for the name?)
Virginia -  Alexandria, Fairfax, Arlington
Washington-  Clarke and Skamania Counties
West Virginia -  Wellsburg, Brooke County (though I have found a number of West Virginia relatives who went upriver to Gallia County, Ohio to get married)

So if you are having difficulty finding a marriage record for your research, consider that hey may have headed towards a "marriage mill" town...

Map of Marriage Mill Towns

Map of Marriage Mill Towns from FamilySearch's Wiki

It's All Relative

It’s All Relative Adventures Up and Down the World Family Tree by A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically. I had not read any of Jacobs’ other books, but this promised to be a lighthearted look at genealogy and it did not disappoint. Jacobs is NOT a genealogist and doesn’t pretend to be. What he is is an author who becomes obsessed about a particular idea and then he writes about it. He became obsessed with the idea that we are ALL basically cousins after discovering the web site geni.com and its goal of hosting a World Family Tree that will prove that we are all related on some level. (A global version of 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon.)

Author, A.J. Jacobs.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia. 

Jacobs hope is that by proving that we are all related, that the individuals of the world will treat each other better. A noble if somewhat optimistic hope. (It presumes that we all treat our families nicely.) Toward that recognition, he wanted to host the world’s biggest family reunion in New York. He gets sponsors and co-hosts and enlists celebrities to participate, hoping to surpass the current Guinness World Record holders, the Lilly family of West Virginia. (I wonder if they are related to my Lilly’s??)

Each chapter counts down the progress towards the reunion, The Global Family Reunion. While the book is lighthearted and very entertaining, you don’t want to read it as any kind of genealogy how-to. It isn’t that, although the 15 page Appendix does cover the basic how-to’s. But amidst all the chuckles and smiles, Jacobs included some profound and thought provoking insights. Here are the ones that struck me:

1. Being a genealogist is “a bit like a creepy voyeur.” (p.27) I have been accused of this on more than one occasion by my relatives.
2. While Bruce Feiler’s book The Secrets of Happy Families extols the benefits of children knowing their family history, the MOST beneficial stories are the ones that show that the family has had hard times, but made it through because they “stuck together as a family” (p. 50)
3. Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and host of Cosmos had to say this about about tracing one’s ancestors: "My philosophy of root-finding may be unorthodox. I just don’t care. And that’s not a passive, but active absence of caring. In the tree of life, any two people in the world share a common ancestor -- depending only on how far back you look. So the line we draw to establish family and heritage is entirely arbitrary. When I wonder what I am capable of achieving, I don’t look to family lineage, I look to all human beings. That’s the genetic relationship that matters to me. The genius of Isaac Newton, the courage of Gandhi and MLK, the bravery of Joan of Arc, the athletic feats of Michael Jordan, the oratorical skills of Sir Winston Churchill, the compassion of Mother Teresa. I look to the entire human race for inspiration for what I can be - because I am human. Couldn’t care less if I were a descendant of kings or paupers, saints or sinners, the valorous or cowardly. My life is what I make of it." (p. 163)  I get this. We make decisions for ourselves that profoundly affect our lives. But I also believe that patterns and traits do get passed down from our families. And knowing what these are or were, helps us to better prepare ourselves for challenges Or as Oprah said, knowing what her slave ancestors endured made her better able to take on obstacles in her own life. 
4.  And on the next page, Jacobs talks that while he sees Tyson’s point of view that we should view all of humanity’s achievements as inspirational, because after all we are all related, he goes on to say that he is “drawn to my own specific line of ancestors” believing that this is a common trait. And “It’s motivated me to research history that I otherwise might have ignored. It’s allowed me to feel more connected to the rest of the world.” (p. 164)
5. Native American idea of 7 generations. Chief of the Onondaga Nation, Oren Lyons explains this concept: “We are looking ahead… to make sure … every decision we make relates to the welfare and well-being of the seventh generation to come…” (pp. .165-166)
6. Talking about the genealogy TV shows and in answer to the shows critics about the unrealistic expectations viewers get from the shows, Jacobs says “They spark interest in our geeky pastime. They inspire people to trace their own pasts. That’s my hope for my paradoxical quest as well… That the celebrity angle will hook my distant cousins on family history, but that they’ll soon realize their non-famous ancestors are just as fascinating.” (p. 222)
7. On feminism and the unequal interest in female ancestors, Judy Russell (aka The Legal Genealogist) is quoted as saying, “If the Dutch had won North America instead of the British, women would be a lot better off. The seventeenth century Dutch were far more liberal than the English, The Dutch allowed women to own land, open businesses --- everything except vote. There were actually two kinds of marriage, one where they retained their rights and on where they forfeited them” And Jacobs continues, “(By they way, the phrase “going Dutch” is not related to Dutch marital feminism, though it should be.” (p. 232)
8. “Family Heuristic” - the idea that evolution has trained humans to treat family members better in order to preserve the common DNA. Jacobs believes that if you think everyone is your cousin, you should want to treat them ALL better. Perhaps this is the secret to the survival of the human race. (p.236)

I highly recommend this title to fans of Jacobs' other books, genealogists who can laugh at themselves, and anyone who wants a laugh. Pick up the book to find out about the Global Family Reunion.