Celebrate your ancestor with a connection to December

Question

Let's celebrate our ancestors who have a special link to the month of December!  Please answer this post with some words about your ancestor and what you'd like the WikiTree community to know about them.  Don't forget to include their WikiTree ID number so that folks can visit their profile.  Photos are welcome too, though not required.

We'll celebrate your ancestor with a shout out on the Saturday Roundup Livecast; we love stories, so please share whatever you can to bring them to life.

If you need inspiration for which of your ancestors to tell us about, go to your Watchlist and then click on the Anniversaries tab.  It will give you a list of all the significant dates in December for anyone in your watchlist.

Answer 1

I really miss my Dad. He would be 100 on December 9, but he has been gone for 19 years. We will celebrate the day for him.   [[Voorhees-283|Kenneth James Voorhees (1923-2004)]]

Comments

Hi Kristina,

I really enjoyed reading your dad's profile.  It sounds like he and your mom had a rich life together.  Although next Saturday would actually be his birthday, we'll celebrate him on today's livecast.  I hope that you can join us at 10 am EST/3 pm UTC or any time afterwards.

https://www.youtube.com/live/HNpC5jGp0CE?si=MV2qtOnS0_tP3xZX

Thanks for sharing with us about your dad.

Betsy

Answer 2

This is more of a challenge than celebration. This pertains to a distant cousin, not an ancestor. John Harwood Pierce.  As a 15 cousin he is colorful, if not partly fictitious. It is said that out of his many, his favorite roll to play was Santa Clause. Also see John Harwood Pierce, 1848 - 1925

In the Magical Season of Christmas, let the Magic happen. In the spirit of collaboration, let WikiTree converge and enhance this profile to prove, disprove and improve this profile. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Comments

What an interesting gentleman, K!  I just added him to the Los Angeles National Cemetery category.  You're right; it looks like there's much more that could be added to John's profile.  Have you been in touch with the profile manager?

We'll celebrate John on today's livecast.  I hope that you can join us at 10 am EST/3 pm UTC or any time afterwards.

https://www.youtube.com/live/HNpC5jGp0CE?si=MV2qtOnS0_tP3xZX

Betsy

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Thank you, Betsy. I just watched my first livecast, kind of, it wasn't live. Enjoyed.

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What an interesting story!  And yes, I love that you shared him and to discover he was my 7th cousin, 4x removed.  I can add him to my December connections...distantly.

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I'm so glad you got to watch, K.  Drop by anytime; live or after the fact!  Beware, WikiTree livecasts are addictive.  I speak from personal experience. ;-)

Answer 3

My father, John R. Miller, http://WikiTree.com/wiki/Miller-56461, spent over two years trying to convince my mother, Evelyn Stielow, to marry him.  He wrote an advice columnist, proposed five or six times, and called this period of his life "the campaign."  Mom wouldn't accept or refuse.  She said: we'll see, maybe. Finally on Valentine's Day 1942 he showed up without roses or chocolates and just asked again.  Mom said yes.  They were married in a wartime civil ceremony on Dec 18, 1942.  When I was an adult, I asked Mom.  She said she knew he was the right one, she just wasn't ready to be married.

Comments

Hi Pat,

What a beautiful photo of your parents; their smiles say it all.  

We'll celebrate your parents' wedding anniversary on today's livecast.  I hope that you can join us at 10 am EST/3 pm UTC or any time afterwards.

https://www.youtube.com/live/HNpC5jGp0CE?si=MV2qtOnS0_tP3xZX

Thanks,

Betsy

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Yes, Betsy.  I watched it live.  Not hooked up to chat but I was there.  So thanks for the mention of my parents and I'll try out your tip for the Watchlist.

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I'm glad you were able to watch, Pat!

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Gorgeous photo Pat thank you for sharing

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Thank you, Susan.

Answer 4

I'd like a mention for my 3rd great grandfather James Blenkin (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Blenkin-45)

He first married my 3rd great grandmother in December 1841, then again in April 1842. He also died, in somewhat unusual circumstances, in December 1866.

Answer 5

Teresa Ann Thompson-48024

My mother Teresa Ann Thompson, was born on Christmas Day, 25 Dec 1933.  She believed her older sisters were allowed to name her, and chose Teresa Ann, after St Teresa of Avila, whom they were learning about in Catholic school.  However, while putting together my ancestry chart, I discovered that my mother's great grandfather had been married to a first wife and together, they had two children. This wife and the two little children died, and the great grandfather remarried the woman who was my mother's great grandmother. The first wife's name was Teresa Ann.  A seeming coincidence.

Answer 6

My 3rd Great Grampa, Samuel Turner Jones (Jones-103632), would have been born 211 years ago on December 12th.  He served in the 80th regiment of the Illinois Infantry for the Union during the Civil War.  On January 19, 1864, he was imprisoned and was held as a prisoner in three different places:  Big Springs, Tennessee, Macon, Georgia and Columbia, South Carolina.  

During his lifetime, Samuel worked as a merchant and a United States Postmaster.  On May 5, 1857, he was appointed postmaster for Jones Creek in Randolph County, Illinois.  The war interrupted his job as postmaster, but upon his return, he was once again appointed as postmaster on May 24, 1871, but this time for Rockwood in Randolph County, Illinois.  After his death, his wife, Sellima would also be appointed as postmaster on February 19, 1879 in Rockwood.  She would hold that position until her death.

Answer 7

Yesterday, I visited a cemetery and accidentally found the grave for Luis Recabarren who died on december 1924. As a politician, he was the driving force behind the worker's movement and the founder of the Communist Party of Chile. Luis was married to Guadalupe Del Canto, (born december 1868) who was the closest cousin to my 2nd great grand-mother.

Answer 8

My 3 x GGP Joseph Ross https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ross-20039 and Mary Ann Wootton were married on Christmas Day 1845, at  All Saints Church, Bloxwich, Staffordshire, England. 

This picture was taken much later probably at the marriage of their grandson Leonard Ross in June 1896

Answer 9

My December ancestor is my 3x great-grandfather  John Eastcott who was born Christmas Day 1824 and baptised the following day. He was the second of 10 children born in North Petherwin, Devon. He emigrated in 1850 to Canada and settled in Canada West that later became Ontario. On December 23, 1852, he married Eliza Short and together they had 15 children, 11 surviving to adults. John died at the age of 84 on the 1st of December 1909.

John had suffered a great loss on 3 May 1855 when his parents, 3 siblings, a sister-in-law and her 4 children were all lost when the Barque John, an immigrant ship, was crashed on the Manacles Rocks on the south shore of Cornwall on the day it left Plymouth for Quebec. Two of John's brothers were already in Canada. It was his brother Edmund's wife and children who perished with the family. The story of the tragedy had not been passed down through the generations and it was only through genealogy that the story was found. 

Answer 10

My great-grandfather Harrison (Harry) Moore Smith married my great-grandmother Ruth Irene Dayton on 21 December 1886 in Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York.

Harry was in the 1895 graduating class at Brooklyn College of Pharmacy and was a druggist with his own shop on Jamaica Ave, Brooklyn, NY.

Ruth lived to be 99 years old. She was born in1865 in Port Jefferson, NY. She loved sweets, and was known to eat dessert before her meal! I am lucky to have known her.

Dayton-1914

Smith-216140

Answer 11

My greatgrandmother Geertruida Lammertse. 

She celebrated her birthday on New Year's Eve, always with a house full of people. Imagine everybody's surprise when we found her birth certificate and she was born on December 30th, not 31st. Turns out her father thought it convenient to celebrate her birthday and New Year's Eve at the same time and that tradition stuck all her life.

Answer 12

Hmmm... I had not noticed before that my Lowery great-grandparents died 365 days apart.

Great-Grandma Dora [[Cooper-31772]] died on Christmas Day 1943. She was 72 years old.

Great-Grandpa Lewis Lowery [[Lowery-3323]] died on Christmas Eve 1944, at 71. (1944 was a leap year, so not quite a full year...)

{{Image|file=Lowery-3323.jpg
|caption=Lewis and Dora Lowery
}}

Not sure if that picture will show up, but it is a nice photo of both of them, and they both seen quite happy. It's the thumbnail image for both of them.

It was a second marriage for both of them.

Comments

Here it is now, Vik-Thor. Indeed a nice photo!

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thanks Jim!