Lucille Holland Aden - My Granny

When my Grandpa Aden died in 1993, Granny (Norma Lucille Holland Aden) was 71 years old. One of my favorite memories of her came a few years later, after she had moved back to St. Louis from Poplar Bluff, Missouri.  She was living in a condominium that she bought, and one of her neighbors was a nice old man named Tom Waggoner. They became quite close.

My mom said it felt "weird," but we all embraced Tom as part of our family.
Once we asked Granny if she and Tom were ever going to get married.
Her response:  "No! I never want to wash another old man's underwear again!"

I've often thought of her answer. It makes me smile.
She was, obviously, happy living on her own.
In fact, she told us that sometimes she'd act really tired just to get
Tom to go home so she could be alone.

I heard something else in her reply, though:
Women are just fine on their own.

Granny was born in Mill Spring, Missouri on July 8, 1922.
She was the oldest child in a large family.
They were poor. 

In 1940, she and my grandpa, Chester "Check" Aden ran off to Arkansas to get married. Her parents were pretty angry. She was just 18.

Check and Lucille soon had three children, and he spent some time serving in the
U.S. Army during World War II.

They both worked hard to support their young family in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
I don't know everything they did, but I know they were in the real estate business.
My grandpa drove a dump truck, I think, for a short time, and they owned a laundry.
They went to Oregon for a bit and there were some job prospects there, but according to my uncle, they didn't stay because Grandpa missed his mom.

When they moved to St. Louis, in the early 1960s, they both worked for the Missouri School for the blind. Later, Grandpa got a job at the St. Louis Metropolitan Sewer District, and I don't believe Granny had to work anymore after that.
It really wasn't until their children were married that I think they were comfortable financially.

Chester Paul Aden, Norma "Lucille" Holland Aden, and their granddaughters Valerie Ann Kienlen (on Lucille's lap), Elaine Margaret Kienlen (on the left) and Leslie Diane Kienlen (me - on the right)   1970

Granny lived from 1922 to 2007.

She started off her adult life as a married 18 year old, worked hard, and ended it content to be living on her own.

Just before Granny was born, women in the United States gained the right to vote.

The year after she was born, the first Equal Rights Amendment was proposed. It said, "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction." It never passed.

In 1928, when she was 5 years old, Amelia Earhart flew solo across the Atlantic.

In 1960, women gained (illegal) access to birth control, which allowed them to plan their families. (It was approved for married couples in 1965. Single women had to fight for this a bit longer.)

Women could get credit cards without their husband's approval in 1974.

In 1975, women were no longer banned from serving on juries.

President Reagan appointed the first woman, Sandra Day O'Connor, to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981.

By 1983, we had our first female astronaut, Sally Ride, in space.

So much changed for women during Granny's lifetime.

It must have been frustrating to have been denied so many things that we take for granted now. 

How many men (and probably women) fought against the rights we enjoy today?

Strong women spoke up.

I like to think that she would have supported the changes that her female descendants enjoy today.

I sure wish I could ask her! 

I hope she would want us to keep up the fight.

Nancy Strader and her Million Children

I have 64 4th great grandparents.

We all do.

I know who most of them are, thanks to years of research. 

One very special ancestor is Nancy Strader.

She is straight up my maternal line.

She is the earliest one in that line whose face I know. I don't see her in my face at all, but I know she's there. She looks a bit sad in her photo, like she's had a hard life.

She probably never even realized that she was creating a strong, thriving, female line.

I have one granddaughter, three daughters, and two sisters. My mom had one sister, and her mom, my grandma, had five sisters. I honestly don't know how many women have descended from Nancy since I haven't researched all the lines of descent, but in my tree there are currently 31 in just my direct line of nuclear families (not counting cousins, etc.). That's certainly a wealth of women!

Here's how this line goes:

Leslie Diane Kienlen (me) b. 1965 in St. Louis County, MO.

Sharon Eileen Aden b. 1942 in Poplar Bluff, MO; d. 2007 in St. Louis, MO.

Norma Lucille Holland b. 1922 in probably Mill Spring, MO; d. 2007 in St. Louis County, MO.

Nelle Naomi Hartman b. 1901 in probably Texas County, MO; d. 1990 in Poplar Bluff, MO.

Mary Naomi Estep b. 1877 in Kilbourne, Mason County, IL; d. 1948 in Ozark, Texas County, MO.

Mary Elizabeth Elmore b. 1848 in Tice Station, Menard County, IL; d. 1922 in Hugoton, KS.

Nancy Strader b. 1822 in Green County, KY; d. 1908 in Tice Station, Menard County, IL.

Nancy came with her parents, John Conrad Strader and Elizabeth Miner, to Menard County, Illinois from Green County, Kentucky. I believe they came with a group of people whose surnames are Strader, Miner/Minor, and Elmore. It has been a difficult task trying to sort out these families, especially the Elmores. But they all came from Green County, Kentucky.

Nancy married James Elmore sometime around 1844. 

They had five children.

Their daughter Mary Elizabeth Elmore was my 3rd great grandma.

James died in December of 1855.

Nancy remarried a few years later, to William K. Million.

Nancy and William had three children: James, George, and Jane Million.

I bet Nancy used to tell people about her "Million children."

I sure would have!

I haven't done any research into the Million children.

I should. We share DNA.

Researching the Million children may give me more information about Nancy. Maybe they have other photos. Maybe they have one where she looks happy. I would like to see that.

Did her daughter, Jane Million, have daughters too? 

How many of us could be out there?

If we count male descendants, are we close to a million yet?

Maybe someday, Nancy will have her million children.

William died before 1870, and by 1880, Nancy was married to John T. Smith from Scotland.

Nancy and John had no children.

The Pennsylvania Cowans

Same Name.

The genealogical problems created because people have the same or similar names are too numerous to count. I have heard that if you find ten online family trees and one of them has a different person, that's the one that may be correct. That person didn't just copy another person's "research."

I recently had to sort through 5 counties in England to determine the correct woman to put into my tree. It's hard work. I even made a spreadsheet, which I avoid as much as I possible. I hate them, but they work well when sorting out people.

This brings me to another example.

In 1971, John Kerr Fleming wrote a book entitled The Cowans from County Down. He states that four brothers, Hugh, David, John, and William Cowan, immigrated to the United States from Ulster around 1720. According to Fleming, they were Ulster Scots, or Scottish people who had settled in Ulster Province in Ireland and had lived there for several generations before immigrating. The four brothers lived near each other in Pennsylvania before their descendants moved around the country.

 Fleming includes transcribed documents in his work, and traces the family history forward to the time of publication. The Cowans from County Down is very often cited in many books about the area around Salisbury, North Carolina, where my Cowan ancestors lived.

Since 1971, our access to information has changed, and we also have the benefit of DNA to guide us in the right direction.

In 2012, Terry Cowan published A Cowan History: The Family of David Cowan (1665c. - 1730 of the Pequea Valley, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, His Antecedents and Descendants. In this book, Mr. Cowan presents another version of the Cowan story using new research and DNA analysis. He argues that Hugh Cowan may have come from Ulster, but David, John, and William were not his brothers (according to Y-DNA analysis) and most likely came from the Chirnside area of Scotland.  Like Mr. Fleming, Mr. Cowan cites many sources and documents to argue his point.

So what's a Cowan researcher to do?

Do your own research, of course!

Just because people have the same surname does not mean they are related.

Just because people with the same surname are living fairly near each other does not mean they are related.

You can always use family histories that you find as clues, but remember, they may not be correct. New documents may come to light. New technologies like DNA become available. 

While I tend to believe the updated research by Mr. Cowan, I plan to fully analyze both books and their sources, plus any additional sources I come across, to develop my own argument. 

It's okay to be different!