Genealogy Jottings

My Sherman family lived in Illinois in the early twentieth century. Luckily for me, I can read the local Mattoon newspapers online to learn about them. I have searched for most of the Sherman names in my database, and this week stories of two of my grandfather’s cousins turned up:

1. Clara Sherman (1908-1926). The daughter of Charles Sherman, this young woman married Howard Cook at the age of fourteen. She suffered from tuberculosis, died at seventeen, and left behind a 5-month-old daughter. Members of the Spiritualist Society conducted her funeral service at her maternal grandparents’ home.
2. Clara Gladys McNamer (1905-1974). This Clara was the daughter of Ethel Sherman and Edward McNamer. One Sunday night in December, 1921 when Clara was 16, a local boy named Forrest Stoner arrived in his car to take her to a church meeting. They did not return that evening, and her parents notified the authorities. An all-night search commenced, but no one could find them. The next morning, the County Clerk in a neighboring county called to let someone know that the couple had eloped and married that morning.

I do not think my grandfather ever met these cousins. His family lived in the Missouri Ozarks. The families did not seem to keep in touch. The girls were the daughters of my great-grandmother Petronellia Sherman’s half-siblings, and she had not approved of her father’s re-marriage.

After these families lost touch with one another, we knew nothing of those cousins who had a close blood tie with us. The newspapers have helped me again to know these people a little better.