Francis E. Stout: Farmer

Many of my ancestors "worked the land." This week, I thought I would take a look at one of these farmers.

Francis E. Stout and his wife Mary E. Pugh Stout were my 3rd Great Grandparents. They were both born in North Carolina and made their way west into Tennessee where they raised a large family of 12 children. 

Here is part of their story:

In Search of Charlotte

I usually try to do a little genealogy every day. I also prefer to find everything I can in one source before moving on. This makes it easier to write those source citations.

The other day I thought I would go through the St. Louis, Missouri guardianship records on FamilySearch. I tend to go page by page, just in case the indexing isn't correct. In the first book, I found something unexpected. It appears that my 3rd great grandfather, Christian F. Kienlen, was made the guardian for a three year old girl named Charlotte, a "free mulatto girl." 

Christian was a young man of 27. 

He was married only the year before to Marie-Louise Moreau.

He was a confectioner, the first in St. Louis, and he bought and sold quite a bit of real estate at that time. 

But who is Charlotte?

Clearly, I'm going to have to find some additional court records, since all I found was the bond. I'll have to wait until all of the government buildings are opened back up again, but I really hope I can find out more about Charlotte. 

Who was she? 

Who were her parents?

What happened during her lifetime?

Did she grow up and have family of her own?

I don't want that little girl to be forgotten.

What Happened That Year?

For the past few weeks, I've been thinking a bit about how our current attempts to slow down a 

pandemic will influence us in the future. 

I am a nurse. I still go to work every day, not knowing when or by whom I may contract an illness.

This is not new for me, but this virus is different.

No one is immune to it.

No one, except for the people who already have it.

Everyone my age knew people who lived through The Great Depression, but unless you realize that, you don't quite understand why your grandma washed and reused aluminum foil or why your dad kept such detailed lists of his bills year after year. The Great Depression made people very careful with their money in ways we can't fully understand. We didn't live through it.

How will the 2020 global pandemic affect our lives?

Our "pop" or popular culture? 

Will there be more movies about pandemics?

Will people write books about social distancing?

Will video games have characters competing 

for toilet paper? 

Time will tell.

Honestly, some of the things I have seen are a bit concerning, but it's not the virus that worries me the most. 

I am worried about our children.

They are watching our reactions.

They watch people hoarding to the point that others can't get the things they need.

They are watching over-anxious adults unable to cope, or angry adults who are defying the recommendations.

We need to teach them to stay calm.

We need to teach them to be helpers.

We need to teach them to care about the more vulnerable in our society, even if it involves personal sacrifice.

I learned in a literature course that fantasy becomes more popular during times of economic recession or depression. It's a great distraction. Think about the things we've seen since 2008's Great Recession:

The Walking Dead, the Twilight series, True Blood, tons of superhero stuff - just to name a few.

My grandpa, Chester Paul Aden, was born in 1919.

This was the year after the pandemic flu that killed millions of people, many of them young, healthy adults.

Did that pandemic affect what people were doing when he was born?

Chester Paul Aden  1920

Here's a bit about my grandpa, who was born the year we were fighting the 3rd wave of the 1918 flu pandemic.