Family Stories

Look at this photograph…

Posted on November 6, 2025November 6, 2025 by Jo Mayne Casey

I have folders and folders of research on my dearly departed family members, so naturally thought I’d seen it all, so to speak. Just this week, though, I have come across a picture online that has really caught my fancy.

The setting is somewhere in Madison Township, Richland County, IL around 1872. I am intrigued by the table setting, lace cloth and pitchers of water. The grass is rather high, so it’s bound to be summertime, but the women are dressed warmly (as they were wont to do in those days), so maybe spring or fall.

A moment caught in time…A memory that is now shared, 155 years later…

l-r: ?Catherine McWilliams; Margaret McWilliams Walker, holding Fanny Walker; Robert Horatio Walker; Abigail Reed Walker; ?Hanna Isabelle “Bell” McWilliams. around 1872, near Parkersburg IL

The people were partially identified on ancestry and I felt a little thrill as I saw that my great-great-grandaunt, Margaret Jane McWilliams Walker, called Maggie, is the lady in the center of the picture, holding her daughter, Fanny, who is about two. The gentleman next to her I recognized right away as her husband, Robert Horatio Walker, but I’d never seen a picture of the lady next to him, who is identified as his mother, Abigail Reed Walker. The other two ladies looked familiar to me, as I have seen them in some of my unmarked portraits, but I had to do my due diligence to flesh them out.

Still, I’m not sure, but I think that the woman on the left is Aunt Maggie’s mother, my great-great-great grandmother, Catherine Morrison McWilliams. Going on around the table, on the far right is another of Catherine’s daughters, my 2x great-grandaunt, Hanna Isabelle “Bell” McWilliams, about 17 at the time of this picture–or that’s my best guess, for now…

The Walker/McWilliams Family Saga is rich with color, but I keep finding more info! I think I’ve got it all together now, so we should have the whole story soon. I’ll tell you this: These were some Strong Women….so glad to see their almost-smiling faces…

Stay tuned…

Family Reunion

Posted on November 1, 2025 by Jo Mayne Casey

Walking, I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.
—Linda Hogan, Dwellings

It took me two days to get the ofrenda arranged just right, but I was beginning to re-arrange it when my first guests began to arrive for our Halloween Party.

I felt the four of them smiling, looking over my shoulder at their photographs, framed and fresh to this gathering. Since last year’s celebration of All Saints and All Souls, I had inexplicably acquired photos of two sets of great-great-great grandparents. One was a daguerreotype in a stack of stuff my brother brought me, and the other I had found on Ancestrydotcom. The couples had, in life, been best friends; their children had married and they shared the same grandchildren.

I have written about my 3x great-grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Mayne, fairly extensively, but had only alluded to my 3x great-grandparents, Eliza and Orlando Harris, parents of Emma Eliza Inlow Mayne, my 2x great-grandma. If you’ve seen any of my posts relating our visits to the Emory Chapel Cemetery, you couldn’t miss their obelisk headstone. Those visits have served to attract these family members to join in the celebration.

Eliza Jane and Orlando Harris, around 1860

I am so happy to host them, and acknowledge that it is no accident that I found those pictures after 150 years. Their spirits are mingling with other relations that are more familiar to my altar.

Their children, my great-great-grandparents…

More 2x great-grandparents, parents of my beloved “Grandmother” Mayne (who was actually my great-grandmother). Her mother, Analiza, died when Grandmother was six months old and her grandmother, Catherine McWilliams, took a large hand in raising her. Her father’s family, the Kinkades, also were there for her…

It looks like it was a hot day in Richland County, IL when the traveling photographer came by The Kinkade Farm and found the family relaxing in the shade…

3x great Joseph Kinkade, his brother, Robert (of the St. Louis Kinkades), Joe’s son, Charlie; Joe’s grand-daughter, Kathleen; nephew, Robert Horatio Walker; Joe’s son, Robert; and 3x great Mary Walker Kinkade.

I love – and feel the love – of them All…

Adam and Catherine Mayne at their stagecoach stop, Travelers’ Rest by A. Mayne

Grandaunt Bernie and Uncle Harry in Italy

The Eaton clan having a picnic around 1965 or 66

Let the music and dancing begin! Bring out the food and drinks!

And later tonight, the stories will be told. I will listen and pass them on.

Peace

P.S. Read all about my forefathers and mothers at All my Ancestors. Don’t forget to subscribe or otherwise mark this blog as I will be adding more Family Stories this month!

Greetings!

Let’s get started!

Posted on August 18, 2025August 28, 2025 by Jo Mayne Casey

My name is Jo Mayne Casey. If you like genealogy, you might be interested in visiting my other blog, All My Ancestors. It’s a chronological history of my greats on both Mom and Dad’s side, as well as my husband’s maternal line, and even a history of our 100+ aged home. While doing that research, I concentrated on direct lineage, and there was a Lot of overflow stories about the aunties, uncles, and cousins that I wanted to share, so here we are!

It appears that Della Joann McGinnis Johnson probably wrote the original version of this prose poem, but others may have edited/contributed. Whoever it was, I thank them. I’m happy to report that I’m not the only crazy person who feels the presence of their ancestors – even consulting with them – and who views graveyards as living things. This explains it…

THE STORY TELLERS

We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors – to put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one.

We have been called by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: tell our story. So we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors you have a wonderful family you would be proud of us? How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me?

I cannot say.

It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who am I and why do I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can’t let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and they are us.

So, as a scribe is called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones.

I hope you enjoy these stories as we get to know the Old Folks!

Stay tuned…