My Aunt Lillian passed away last week at her home in Kerman, California. Her obituary, as well as some family stories and memories, follows:
Lillian Louise Killen
(1934 – 2021)
Lillian Louise Killen, age 87, of Kerman, California passed away on Saturday, November 6, 2021. Lillian was born October 23, 1934.
Continue reading Lillian Horne Killen: In MemoriamI set many goals at the beginning of 2020, completely unaware of what the year had in store for our world. Even with COVID-19 shutdowns, I’ve made good progress on my professional genealogy journey:
Continue reading 2020 Review & 2021 Goals
My fun, spunky, vivacious Aunt Georgia passed away unexpectedly yesterday. The world has lost a lady who was truly one of a kind. Her obituary, as well as some of my memories, follows:
Georgia Horne Lofton
(1937 – 2020)
Graveside service for Mrs. Georgia Lofton, 83, of Henderson, [Texas] will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, December 2, 2020, at Rusk County Memorial Gardens with Bro. Bill Kuykendall officiating. Interment will follow under the direction of Crawford-A. Crim Funeral Home.
Mrs. Lofton passed from this life on November 29, 2020, at her residence. She was born in Winnsboro, LA to the late Dewey and Ethel Horne.
Continue reading Georgia Horne Lofton: In MemoriamToday would have been my parents’ golden wedding anniversary. John Dewey Horne and Gwen Smith married fifty years ago on 24 July 1970 at Boeuf River Baptist Church in Liddieville, Louisiana. Their pastor, Rev. Harold Davis, officiated.
I have only a few grainy photos of my parents’ wedding, so I used MyHeritage’s new photo enhancement app to improve the quality of the one above. Look at how young and happy they were!
My mom was eighteen years old and fresh out of high school. She sewed her own wedding dress (it’s still in a closet at my dad’s house). My dad was twenty-three, early in his career with the Louisiana Department of Highways and a member of the Louisiana Army National Guard. After a short honeymoon in Hot Springs, Arkansas, they started life together in the home my dad still lives in today.
I remember the story my mom would share about the morning of their wedding. As usual for the summer months, my Papaw Smith came down the breezeway of their dog-trot house and bellowed, “Ho, ho, ho — who wants to go?” It was his wake-up call for all the kids to hoe cotton. My mom said — for the first time in her life — she didn’t go out to the fields. She thought if there was ever a day not to hoe cotton, it has to be your wedding day.
I’d much rather be throwing my parents an amazing anniversary party instead of writing a blog post. My mom, Gwen Smith Horne, passed away on 15 February 2013. She and my dad were married 42 years. As this date approached, I thought of all the party details: displaying her wedding dress (I’m sure she would have protested), making a photo slideshow, and recreating their cake cutting photo in the exact same spot. It would have been a great day of gathering with friends and family (I don’t want to consider COVID-19 in these daydreams) and celebrating the milestone my parents achieved.
But even without the milestone, the party, or the recognition, my parents did well. They loved each other and lived out that commitment until death they did part. I am grateful for their example.
On this day — 139 years ago — my 4x-great-grandfather Alexander Rose Hendry’s law office was destroyed by fire. The article below appeared in the 29 April 1881 issue of the New Orleans Democrat (transcription follows):¹
WINNSBORO, LA.
A HOUSE AND ITS CONTENTS DESTROYED BY IN
CENDIARY FIRE–THE WEATHER AND CROPS.
(Special to the Democrat).
WINNSBORO, La., April 26, via Delhi, April
28.–Last night about 8 o’clock the house
owned by Dr. A. R. Hendry, and occupied by
Osborne Perkins as a dry goods store, and
Hendry & Berry as a law office, was entirely
destroyed by fire, with the entire contents.
Osborne & Perkins lose about $3000, insured
for $2000. Dr. Hendry loses the house, which
was very old, and his entire law library, which
was a valuable one. Berry loses his library,
which was small. The fire was the work of an
incendiary. There was no insurance on the
house or library.
We had a fine rain on the twenty-second and
twenty-fourth, and the gardens and fields are
looking well. Cotton seed is selling at six
cents a pound and scarce at that price. Hogs
are dying with cholera.
Oh, what a loss for Alexander! Although he studied medicine at Williams College in Watertown, Massachusetts,² and practiced as a physician in northeast Louisiana for many years,³ he also worked as an attorney. Alexander was admitted to the Louisiana Bar Association in 1847.⁴ The fire destroyed all the books he’d amassed in his 30+ year career — a needless loss at the hands of an arsonist.
I’m unsure where Alexander’s law office, along with the dry goods store, was located. It seems most reasonable that the law office would be near the parish courthouse in Winnsboro. However, Alexander⁵ and his law partner Charles L. Berry,⁶ as well as the likely merchant, A. F. Osborne,⁷ all lived in Ward 7, on New Zion Road toward Liddieville. (If we weren’t in a pandemic, I would visit the courthouse and search for any Hendry-owned property near the town center, but…well, that will have to be a project for another time.)
Alexander lost much of his wealth in the Civil War. On the 1860 census, he reported the value of his real estate as $8000, and his personal property as $500.⁸ By 1870, that value had decreased to $1770, and $391.⁹ Alexander resorted to selling much of his real estate because he lacked cash to pay taxes.¹⁰ The loss of his entire law library was surely a devastating loss to a man near the end of his career.
Alexander died not long after the fire, supposedly on 17 November 1884, in Franklin Parish.¹¹ An authored family history cites this date from an unidentified newspaper clipping.
¹”Winnsboro, LA. A House and Its Contents Destroyed by Incendiary Fire–The Weather and Crops,” The New Orleans Democrat, 29 Apr 1881, p. 1, col. 2; image copy; Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=32458955 : accessed 25 Apr 2020).
²Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, “Catalogus, Collegii Gulielimi, MDCCCXXXVIII”; image, “U.S., College Student Lists, 1763-1924.” Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/2207/32217_622204_0523-00030 : accessed 4 May 2019); citing “College Student Lists,” American Antiquarian Society.
³Alexander R. Hendry, 1839-1844, Medical Daybook. Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, Louisiana State University Libraries, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
⁴”Admissions to the Bar,” New Orleans Weekly Delta, 1 Nov 1847, p. 2, col. 1; image copy, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=32458831 : accessed 25 Apr 2020).
⁵1880 U.S. census, Franklin Parish, Louisiana, enumeration district (ED) 34, p. 41-A (penned), p. 206 (stamped), A. R. Handry; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/6742/4241369-00624/8848208 : accessed 25 Apr 2020); citing NARA microfilm publication T9, roll 453.
⁶1900 U.S. census, Franklin Parish, Louisiana, Ward 7, enumeration district (ED) 47, p. 5-A (penned), p. 69 (stamped), Charles Berry; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7602/4120180_00045 : accessed 25 Apr 2020); citing NARA microfilm publication T623, roll 565.
⁷1880 U.S. census, Franklin Parish, Louisiana, enumeration district (ED) 34, p. 46-B (penned), p. 209 (stamped), A. F. Osborn; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/6742/4241369-00629 : accessed 25 Apr 2020); citing NARA microfilm publication T9, roll 453.
⁸1860 U.S. census, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana, population schedule, Pine Woods, p. 136 (penned), dwelling 1003, family 979, A. R. Handry household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7667/4231221_00135 : accessed 4 May 2019); citing NARA microfilm publication M643, roll 410.
⁹1870 U.S. census, Franklin Parish, Louisiana, population schedule, p. 4 (penned), dwelling 29, family 29, A R Hendry; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7163/4269414_00068 : accessed 4 May 2019); citing NARA microfilm publication M593, roll 513.
¹⁰Carolyn Yvonne White, et al., The Descendants of Alexander Rose Hendry and Mary Minerva Manning (self-published, 2000), 5.
¹¹Ibid., 7.
