52 Ancestors Week 35: Disaster

Question

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 35

The theme for Week 35 is "Disaster." (I want to point out that this theme was chosen long before any of the catastrophic events that we've seen in the past few weeks.) Disasters come in may forms. They can be personal or they can affect an entire community. You can also have a disaster in your research.

That's great it starts with an earthquake. Birds, and snakes and airplanes. Lenny Bruce is not afraid....

Comments

It's the end of the world as we know it...

https://allroadhaverhill.blogspot.com/2023/08/52-ancestors-week-35-disaster.html

And  I feel fine.

Answer 1

I've been working on the Rhodes family of Ulster County, New York so this is not a community disaster; it is just one family's personal disaster.  Aaron Rhodes, a Civil War Veteran who was wounded at Antietam and his wife Elizabeth Miller had four sons.  The middle sons were fine.  It is the disaster of the eldest and the youngest.  Lewis Wellington Rhodes was born first http://wikitree.com/wiki/Rhodes-12689 .  He called himself William and was engaged to be married in 1892, but he was intimate with another girl then disappeared.  At first it was a mystery.  Where did he go.  Then his body was found floating in the Hudson River and a letter to his father was found, a tender letter of a young man destroyed by guilt.   Since the letter was published I included it in "William" Rhodes' profile.  The youngest son was Wesley J. Rhodes, who was called "Wessie" by his deceased older brother, http://wikitree.com/wiki/Rhodes-12702.  In his World War I Registration he was living in a hospital in Poughkeepsie and listed as "insane".  There he remained for the next 19 years until he died in 1935 at age 50.  

This subject is not talked about much but it is a personal disaster for a family when there is mental illness.  

Comments

Pat, thank you for sharing the profile of Wesley and story. Yes, mental illness is a disaster for families, and it seems to be even more common in our world today.

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Yes, Alexis, it does seem more common but I wonder if it is really that we know more. Can you imagine your post about the famine in Ireland with our media?  Daily reports on the famine, conditions on the ships, the conditions in the countries they escape to broadcast hourly with horrific high definition detail. I think we have become a world of relentless visual turmoil prompting much escapism.

Answer 2

This is an 1868 engraving by Henry Doyle depicting the tragedy of the families during the Irish Potato Famine. 

My second great grandmother Jane Walker and her sister were among the teenage girls that left their families and faced the dangers of the sea and the perils of arriving penniless in the United States. 

The famine in Ireland was from 1845 to 1852, and it caused a historical crisis that had a major impact on Irish society and history. About one million people died, and between 1845 and 1855 over two million people left Ireland.

Comments

Thank you Alexis for sharing this amazing photo

Answer 3

I couldn't find any pictures of my first wedding. 

Comments

*badumdish!*

Answer 4

It's not on his profile yet, but my great grandfather George W. W. Whelton was a captain with the Salem (MA) Fire Department when the Great Salem Fire of 1914 happened. His own house burned down while he was out with his crew fighting the fire several blocks away.

Answer 5

I went in the Distasters category. First I looked for another Titanic victim to connect. But there I wasn't successful, Then I went today in the mining disasters and after looking around a bit in Montana, I decided to go to Pennsylvania. In the Avondale disaster I eventually found William Lawrence Wildrick. FamilySearch told me who his father is and I found him in the WikiTree database. So we have one unlinked person less in the database.

Answer 6

William Hayes (1874 - 1917) was the harbour pilot steering the SS Imo who perished in the Halifax Explosion. It was the largest human-caused explosion in world history prior to Hiroshima, and killed nearly 1800 people. William was both my 1st cousin twice removed and my great-great aunt's husband.

Comments

That's quite a story that I had never heard of before!

Answer 7

Between September and December of 1929, my grandaunt Carrie Mowery, and her husband lost two of their three children.

The youngest, Dale Mowery, was hit by a car while riding his bicycle.

The oldest, Murrell, Mowery, was working as a bricklayer on a building site and fell down an elevator shaft.

A family disaster, right around the same time the stock market was crashing, leading to the Great Depression.

Answer 8

This is a terrible family disaster. Teresa Blanco Gana, (3rd great grandaunt) lived a fairy tale: she was the daughter of Chile's first President and illustrous General Blanco. She married a chilean millionaire, owner of gold and silver mines, during a trip to France. Their godparents at marriage were the Emperor Napoleon III and his wife, Empress Eugenie. Back in Chile, at 30 years old, Teresa was the mother of 7 litlle children and she enjoyed visiting the mine sites. One day, her dress got tangled in a machine used to break rocks. They couldn't save her and she was crushed to death. 13 years after, her husband died in a shipwreck.