they would turn in their graves

Mary Rawlinson Creason From the Lohman Funeral Home in Ormond Beach, Florida: “Mary Rawlinson Creason November 20, 1924 to March 26, 2021 “Big M”, as the family called her, took off for Heaven from her home base in Spruce Creek Fly-In Community in Florida. It was a peaceful departure, made possible by her ground crew: Crew Chief Abby Garvin, Hospice, relatives and other friends and family who did what they could, all limited by the pandemic. Mary was an active pilot for 75 years. She soloed in 1943, in Kalamazoo, and got her commercial rating in 1946 at Muskegon Airport, before Grand Haven Airport existed. She taught hundreds of students to fly, was a charter pilot, and ran an FBO at Muskegon and Grand Haven. She flew fast and low and placed in many air races across the US, Mexico, Canada, and Hawaii. She had a Presidential appointment to the Women’s Advisory Committee to the FAA 1969-74. After selling her business in 1978, she worked in Lansing for the Michigan Department of Aeronauti...

Jemima at center, ca. 1926-1927 The rest are *probably* L to R: Florence (Zend's wife) holding baby Herman Hollopeter; Eva Mae (Elmer's daughter) holding baby Warren Neuhouser; Sylvia (Albert's wife) holding baby Hazel Hollopeter; Jessie Wuanita (Zend's daughter) holding baby Margaret Ebert Jemima Hannah Stevick was born in 1849 in Pennsylvania, the younger of two daughters of Jacob and Hannah (Snoke) Stevick. In 1850, Jacob, Hannah and their small daughters Mary and Jemima were living in Mifflin Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania; Jacob was a farmer. Jemima’s mother Hannah died at the age of only twenty-eight years in 1853. Jacob was married a second time in 1854 to Catharine A. North, and when the census was taken in 1860, Jemima (aged 13) was living with a widow, Eliza Keeper and her two small children in Letterkenny, Franklin County, Pennsylvania – about seven miles from her father’s residence in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Jemima was attending school. Her st...

Katie Ann (Gordon) Freeman Houser at right, with her daughters (L-R) Edith, Sylvia and Goldie Katie Ann Gordon was born in January 1862 in Mason County, Illinois, the youngest child of David Alexander Gordon and Catherine (Hull) Gordon. David and Catherine were married in 1844 in Allen County, Indiana, and in 1850 they and their two small children were living in Whitley County, Indiana. In 1860, David, Catherine and their six children were living in rural Mason County, Illinois. David was a farmer. When baby Katie was only six months old, her father David enlisted in the Union Army, in Company A, 85 th   Illinois Infantry Regiment. The regimental history of the Illinois 85 th   tells: “This regiment was organized at Peoria about Sept. 1, 1862, at a time when the government needed troops, as the Federal forces had been beaten back at Bull Run a short time before and Bragg was threatening Louisville, Gen. Nelson being driven back to that point. The regiment was one that was orde...

Mary "Mamie" Edwina (Smith) Wetzel [unfortunately I don't know which one is Mamie - I suspect the one in the middle] Mary Edwina Notestine Smith was born in 1871 in Augusta, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, the eldest daughter of Ithiel A. and Mary Elizabeth (Notestine) Smith. Ithiel had enlisted in the 23 rd   Regiment of the Ohio Infantry on New Year’s Day, 1862, and served with Company B of that regiment for the entirety of the Civil War. Ithiel and Mary were married in Allen County, Indiana in 1869; Mary had been first married in 1854 to Albert S. Ellsworth, but when Albert died in 1865, she was left a widow with three children. The youngest of her three sons, Eddie, also died in 1865, but when she and Ithiel were enumerated in the 1870 census, her two older sons, Benjamin and Charles Ellsworth, were living with them in Washington Township, Allen County, Indiana. Ithiel was a farmer. I do not know and can’t really imagine what the Smiths were doing in Michigan when their d...

Margerett Rosallia (Snyder) Harter Margerett Rosallia Snyder, my 2 nd   great-grandmother, was born in 1865 in Indiana, the eldest child of George and Sarah (Coles) Snyder. George and Sarah were married in 1864 in Indiana, and when the census was taken in 1870, they were living on their farm in Springfield Township, Allen County, Indiana, with their two young daughters, Margerett and her infant sister Emma. In 1880, Margerett was still living with her parents on their Springfield Township farm. When Robert S. Robertson wrote a short biography of George in the   History of the Valley of the Upper Maumee River   in 1889, he wrote that “Mr. Snyder has a handsome farm embracing eighty acres of the old homestead. He and family are respected by all who know them.” George (and thus presumably his family) was listed in the 1890 directory of Allen County, Indiana, still as a resident of Springfield Township.   Margerett was married in 1891 at the age of twenty-five years to I...