Lancaster County Family Ties

Grandma was great about remembering birthdays and holidays - she sent cards out for all of them.  I found this list among mom's papers, but it is Grandma's hand writing.  There is no date or greeting. The list covers birth dates for Pappy's siblings, parents, and paternal grandparents: Benjamin Garner & Cora Mae Groff married April 14, 1906 Ralph Groff Garner   Aug. 5, 1906 Mary E Garner          Dec. 29, 1908 Ella Mae Garner        Nov. 29, 1910  (my note: married name Roop) Clyde J. Garner         July 25, 1913 Lester C. Garner       May 28, 1915 Benjamin Franklin Garner       Aug. 20, 1885 Cora Groff Garner                   Aug. 13, 1887 Ben's parents: Charles Garner 1863 - died 1943 Elizabeth Musser Garner 1864 - died 1925  (my note: Musser was her mom's maiden name)

As I was going thru the boxes of letters and photos trying to organize all of it, I ran across a letter written by Pappy to mom - I had never seen him write anything so this letter was special simply from that perspective.  I also found the letter from mom that Pappy was responding to.  Thought I would put both on here simply to share.  I remember Pappy reading the newspaper and his Bible without problems, obviously writing was not easy. Mom's letter to her folks was four pages long, below is the paragraph asking about Pappy's health. It is dated 10 May 1967. It's hard to read because of the thin paper and being written on both sides: "In June's letter (meaning June Kann, sister of Jim Applebach) she said she stopped at Watt & Shand's (Lancaster department store where Grandma worked) to see you Tuesday and you weren't there. Another saleslady said Daddy was sick....How is Daddy? Was he sick or is he sick? What is wrong? Get one of the kids to write

Taylor & May married in 1909. I remember his nasty temper - it apparently did not improve with age.  In 1920, physical abuse was not a usual reason for granting a divorce to the woman, so my thought is that the abuse was very severe.  I find it interesting that his mother wrote a statement about the abuse he dished out to May. I do not know all the details but one of Grandma Garner (Reba) first cousins and I went to clean family tombstones in the fall of 1986, and he told me that when Taylor & Jennie lived in Conestoga he lived across the road.  Apparently the Applebach house had a large window in the living room and he saw Taylor push Jennie thru the glass window. So I have to think that abusive behavior to his wives (maybe children as well) was a normal action of his. None of his children actually do use or have used the term "abuse" when describing Pop, however, they say or have said things such as "not nice", "mean", "yelled a lot"

When Taylor & Maggie married in March 1905, they had to have parents signature because both were minors.  I have to wonder if Maggie was pregnant, however, so far I have found no mention of this in documented history.  Mom told me that Grandma Jennie was convinced he had a son in Maryland. Did he??  Maggie being pregnant would be a reasonable reason for 2 minors to marry and both fathers sign the license but I honestly don't know. A side note here would be that Aunt Romaine told me once that she met a man in downtown Lancaster who looked exactly like Pop (Taylor) when he was younger.  He seemed to know who she was and spoke a few words and walked off.  She had no idea who he was and never saw him again.  If he was a son of one of the twins (Taylor or Scott) so far I have found no documented evidence of that. However, by Feb. 1906 he had deserted her and apparently moved back in with his parents and she to hers. The divorce was granted on grounds of desertion in May 1908.

These 2 letters are the only ones that I found in among the papers and letters that mom kept that were from her grandma (my gr-grandma) Cora (Groff) Garner.  I just thought I would share them, if nothing else so others could see her handwriting. Click on the images to make them big enough to actually read. The first is dated Sept. 29, 1970 and was after a visit she made with Ralph & Reba Garner out to see us in Idaho.  The cut off word at the bottom is "never" as in "and never expect to see again."  Pappy & Grandma drove out to see us and brought Grammy Garner with them. The second letter is dated Feb. 24, 1971. We saw her again on our trip to Lancaster in the summer of 1971, which she mentioned hoping we would make in the below letter.

I have finally gone through all the letters  between my mom and grandma (Reba) and found this treasure among them. I had asked Grandma to write out this recipe for me. Since the recipe was stored in her head, and was not measured in cups and teaspoons, it took her several hours to make a batch while converting her "in my head" measurements to cups and teaspoons. I didn't take me long to memorized it, and then I lost the written copy.  I was glad to find it again among family papers.   I just thought it would be fun to share - I still make this - but also so people can see grandma's hand writing.