My Little Goldmine!

Well it finally happened.  I was "playing on Facebook" when a post from one of the genealogy sites came up.  It was a map of the United States, quite colorful... and the header was something about Newspaper sites... so I clicked on it.  It came up with some cities within Ohio and I scrolled down to see if there was anything from Mansfield... where I was born, NOTHING.  So I scrolled further and went looking for Zanesville... and there it was.  There was a link for an 1897 Newspaper so I clicked on it and searched for BOOZ.  The second hit was this article dated 18 November, 1897 from the Weekly Signal, page 3 column 7:

Death date:  15 November, 1897

I got to the first line and read "Mrs. Anna M. Booz" and my eyes scanned just below where Charles Booz was mentioned and KNEW I had found what I've been searching for since 2008!  Mercy Ann VanHorn-Booz.  I couldn't read the rest of the article for 10 minutes because I was absolutely sobbing and grateful!  Now I know she died in Ohio and the date of her death!  Now I'm sure that she had NOT gone back to Pennsylvania and passed away there.  She was last known alive in 1896 when she appeared in the Zanesville City Directory... but all that meant was that she was still living when it was published... or at least while the information for the directory was being gathered... which could have been as early as 1895!  I couldn't find her alive on the 1900 Census... so I had about a 5 year window to find her death... but she could have died anywhere.  I actually found an Anna Booz who died in Washington DC, but was buried in Pennsylvania and she fit the birth year and the approximate death timeframe... but after more searching I found it wasn't her... 

I searched Death Indexes for Booz... nothing on her, I even searched variant spellings... nothing.  So I searched just Anna in the time frame mentioned... NOTHING, NOTHING ,NOTHING!!!  So now that I have an actual obituary, I went back and looked and there is REALLY NO RECORD of her death in the Ohio archives either in Muskingum (checked when I was there in 2012) and nothing in the online indexes!!  Even after knowing for sure when she died!

Now I'm getting greedy after finding the above article, I want even more.  The above article was found on a Saturday morning while Greg was out of town... and because I was so emotionally overwhelmed with this new find, and not familiar with the website I found it on... I wanted to know if there was another article that would reveal who she was the daughter of, and her burial spot.... yes, I'm greedy that way. I also describe myself as a "pit-bull" when it comes to getting what I want in Family History.

So on the Tuesday following the Saturday find I went back to the newspaper the above article was found in and YES, I had missed the fact that within the same newspaper was another article about "Booz".  

On page 4, column 1 of the same date as the above article... was THIS article:

Oh my gosh.... now I know where she's buried, and it's where I thought she was all along!!!  In the same cemetery as her son John Booz.  I am just assuming that Charles, her husband, is buried there as well... In 2012 while visiting the Wesley Union Cemetery in White Cottage, Ohio, I wondered why John was buried in this cemetery when most of the siblings are in the Greenwood Cemetery in Zanesville proper... I wondered if he chose this cemetery because it was where his father had been buried... 

What I still didn't know on that Tuesday was WHO her parents were.  For that... it would take a few more days of searching.  I then entered the name VanHorn in the search field and this article showed up:

This confirms she is the daughter of Arthur VanHorn & Lydia Featherby!!!  ALL questions are now answered, almost... but then I am a "greedy pit-bull"  :}

The Tree

So I've seen these online many times and basically disobeyed one of the 10 Commandments "Thou Shalt Not Covet".  When my mom passed away she left a tiny inheritance for each of her three children and after spending a bit of money on the kitchen remodel, I had about $150.00 left over.  It sat in my drawer for nearly 9 months (no, I don't keep money in the house, but I did have this little wad).  So I kept trying to think of ways to spend it on something Mom would enjoy… and finally I thought about the trees I've been looking at for awhile… so I decided this is how the rest of the money would be spent.

The tree alone was $150… it's vinyl and the lady who created it lives in China.  I asked her to extend the trunk by 1 foot since it wasn't tall enough to go from baseboard to ceiling.  I already had the oval frames… they are SO AWESOME.  Yes, they are plastic and I bought them at the $1 store a few years ago… I bought a bunch, then when I went back, all they had were the GOLD colored ones but I bought them anyway and thought I could spray paint them black with Krylon's plastic paint.  So lest you think the most expensive part of the tree is the frames… NO NO.  You'd never guess they're plastic… even up close :}.   The Gold colored ones didn't paint up completely, but have a little bit of gold showing through on the filigree in the frame… SO PRETTY!

The wall is 8' tall and 10' wide.  Here's the tree before frames:

And with all the frames:

The most fun is watching my 3 year old granddaughter & 2 year old grandson look at the tree and say "My Family"!!!  I even get the step-ladder out so they can see the ones at the top!

I am a happy girl, and I think mommy would love it and think it was money well-spent.