Betty's Box - Part III

Let me introduce you to Larry Arnett and his wife, Betty Hodges Arnett.  Betty is the daughter of Wyvetta (Betty) Hodges who was the keeper of all of those precious family documents and pictures.  She is a second cousin to me.  Rachel Wainright Jones (Pop's Mom) is our common ancestor -- our g-grandmother.

I currently find myself living in this strange 21st Century world where the people I talk to, write to and share family information with, I'VE NEVER MET!  Count Betty among that number.  When Betty and I first "met" she told me of the family's frequent moves.  She joked that her mother never cleaned the house, she'd move instead.  But there was one constant -- everywhere they moved, "Betty's Box" moved with them.

Edith holding Wyvetta

The box held items I consider to be priceless.  The last two posts contain many of the items, including pages from the family Bible and pictures of our ancestors (often labeled).  Betty was not aware of who many of the people were, so we are grateful to each other.

Betty is one of four children:  Don and Mary Lee (deceased), Betty and John Patrick (known as Pat).  The family moved to Florida in 1949 when Betty was only a few years old.  My grandfather, Pop, and her grandmother, Edith, remained close all of their lives. Since I always knew that my grandmother, Norine, was happiest at home, I was surprised when Betty shared  pictures of Fred and Norine when they came to visit them in Florida.

Wyvetta (Betty) greeting Norine when
they came for a visit in Florida.


Pictured is Pat and Betty carrying Pop's luggage from the train station in Orlando.  Betty tells me she was known as "Skipper" her entire childhood and did not realize she had another "legal" name until registration for Junior High School.

Fred and Norine at the Orlando Train Station, 1951

Fred, Norine, Wyvetta, Donnie, Pat and "Skipper"

When Betty and I were first trying to understand our connections to each other, she sent me a picture that summed it up.  This is a great picture of our combined families taken in Cincinnati in 1941. On the back of the picture, it said that this was taken when the family went to the Viaduct Inn to celebrate Edith Hodges' 59th birthday (Pop's sister)! With the help of a "cousin collaboration" I'm going to do my best to identify the people in the picture.  (Corrections and additions welcomed).

From left to right in the top row: Fritz Breving, Fred Jones, ?, Norine, Margaret Ann, Edith Breving, Emery Hodges, Edith Hodges and Harold Hodges
Bottom row:  ? ,  Donnie Hodges, Mary Lee Hodges ?, Bob Breving, Rosemary Breving, Fred Breving, ?,  and Wyvetta (Betty) Hodges

Thanks so much, Betty.  I look forward to the day we actually meet!

The Brevings

Somewhere in everyone's family is a collection of old photos.  It takes a little project like this to locate them and realize what a gold mine of memories we have.  I look at this picture of Edith and see that same wavy hair I've always had.

Rosemary told me she knew she had copies of pictures of her mother as a young student at St. Rose School.  Here are three of them.  In the first picture, Edith is the second person from the right in the second row.

I love this picture.  Edith is wearing glasses and is standing in the first row.  When I first saw it, I thought for sure I was looking at the face of one of my cousins.

This is a picture of 8th Grade Graduation from St. Rose.  There were 14 boys and 15 girls in this class.  Looking at what all of them are wearing, you know that this was a very important milestone.  Edith is in the first row and is the first one on the left.

Edith and her husband, Fritz, went on a vacation to Chicago with another couple in 1947.  Here is a picture of the other couple,  taken in front of the Holy Name Cathedral.  (I'll add the names later).  Rosemary told me that this was the last vacation they were able to take before Fritz's death at the age of 49.

This is a picture of Rosemary on her First Communion day with her father, Fritz.  Rose told me that every bit of her First Communion dress including her slip were sewn by Norine.

It's always the personal things that people do for us that we remember.


Here is a little experiment.  I put together a video (that has a couple of errors) with some pictures Rose and Donna loaned me.  It has music.  Give it a shot.
Breving Video

Edith Jones Breving

We finally made it to our parents' generation.  One of the joys of doing genealogy is when you get to find out about and share some real gifts you've never seen before.  One such gift was seeing the beautiful wedding picture of Edith Jones and Frederick (Fritz) Breving.  I never had the opportunity to meet Uncle Fritz.  He died a year before I was born.

Edith and Fritz were married on June 15, 1932.  Fritz was 32 years old and Edith was 22.  Their witnesses were the brother of the groom, Jim, and the woman he would later marry, Gladys Goldsmith.  The two beautiful flower girls were the sister of the bride, Margaret Ann, and Alice Riedy.  They were married at St. Rose Church by Fr. Robert W. Schutte.  This gives me the excuse to post one more picture of St. Rose Church.

Frederick John Breving was the son of German immigrants, William Breving and Ameliz Stortz.  He was born on September 14, 1899 in Cincinnati.  Rose tells me that being of German descent, that he valued thriftiness.  When he and Edith were married they lived for a year at 2444 Eastern Ave. until he was able to pay cash for their home in Mt. Lookout. Rosemary was baptized at St. Rose Church.

Fritz was a electoplater working for the Rapid Electric Co.  He worked with lead every day on his job. His death certificate says he died of bronchiectasis, a lung disease that can lead to serious consequences.  He died at the age of 49 leaving a young widow with three children -- Rosemary, Fred and Bob.  I was able to find a copy of his draft card for World War I.  Rosemary told me he was never drafted because he did not have vision in one eye. Notice that he was living on Columbia Ave., as were the Joneses until they had to move for the construction of Columbia Parkway.

Edith was the oldest of five children of Fred and Norine.  I like to say that I come from a long line of strong women, and she was obviously one of them.  Widowed at the age of 39 and having lived with a sick husband prior to his death, she certainly had her hands full trying to raise three young children alone.  Rosemary gave me a picture of Edith at six months.

Edith attended St. Rose School, of course.  Rose tells me she has a copy of a picture of her mother that is housed in the St. Rose Archives.  I'm going to borrow it so we can upload it.  You can refer to a picture in the blog posting for September 2, 2009 on the "Perfect Family minus One" to see a teen-aged Edith.  I'm going to meet with Rose and scan in some other pictures of Edith in the near future.

Edith was a caretaker and a homemaker, very much cast in the mold of her mother.  Not only was she the first-born and a young widow of three, but she became the caretaker for her father, Fred, giving him a home after Norine's death.  It couldn't have been easy.  They lived in a two-bedroom home.  Both Edith and her Dad suffered from macular degeneration as they became older, losing their vision for all intents and purposes.  Edith became a member of Rose and Don's family.  Edith died of breast cancer on March 9, 1991 at the age of 80.  Both she and Fritz are buried at Calvary Cemetery in Evanston.

The "Perfect Family" minus one

I love this picture. Rosemary Kramer let me copy it. She told me that it was taken shortly after my Dad, Johnny was born and they "thought" their family was complete. Pictured from left to right are: Fred (boy, is he handsome!), the "baby" Johnny, the big sister, Edith, big brother, Charley, youngest brother, Bob, and Norine. Little did they know at the time that their family would be completed with the birth of Margaret Ann years later. What a beautiful family!

The family was living on Eastern Ave., across from Highland Elementary and down the street from the beloved St. Rose Church.

The picture of the house was taken in 2001. When Jan and Pop owned it, it was painted bus company yellow as Rosemary would say. You can refer back to the blog on Pop with the buses to see that color.

Fred and Norine became the parents of five children:

Edith was born June 14, 1910
Charles Frederick was born July 4, 1911
Robert Leo was born July 15, 1918
John Thomas was born September 30, 1920
Margaret Ann was born January 22, 1928

After seven years, it is no wonder that Fred and Norine thought they had the perfect, and complete, family. From what I've heard, however, Margaret Ann was a delightful and cherished addition to the family. I'll have to let the Scardinas fill in the blanks about that when we get to the next generation.

The Scardinas let me copy this picture of their mother, Margaret Ann, the small child in the middle of the picture. It was taken in 1929 when Margaret Ann was two. I'm told she is surrounded by other East End friends. Note the river to the right and St. Rose Church in the background to the left. Love those nickers . . .

A Tribute to Lillian

When I first became interested in the history of the Joneses and my German and Irish lines, I had a couple of things going for me. First of all, my mother gave me a folder of family information she had collected over the years. A lot of her notes were the result of conversations she had had with Margaret Ann Scardina, my Dad's sister. (A few years back, Patty and I compared notes and found out that she had the same record -- her mother must have shared the information with mine). In the folder was a copy of a letter from Lillian Mears to Edith Breving.

As I was new to all of this, I called Rosemary Kramer and asked her to explain what she knew about the letter. Much to my surprise Rosemary told me all about Lillian, who was our grandfather's first cousin. She told me she lived in Harrison and was about 95 years old.

I called Lillian and despite macular degeneration and being somewhat frail, she invited Patty Volz and me to lunch at the home she shared with her daughter in Harrison, Ohio. She could practically quote all of the details in the letter, which had been written in 1978.

With a name like Jones, you need all of the clues you can get, and Lillian had a lot of them. Lillian was a retired school teacher who had graduated from Miami University. She had great stories about the lengths her parents went to to fund her education -- now I wish I had written them down. A lot of the things in her letter have now been documented. There were a few inaccuracies, but they were largely based on the recollections of her mother whose father (Alexander) died when she was only two years old.

As I write this history as I know it, I will often include quotes from her letter. Thank goodness that Edith Jones Breving asked Lillian to write down what she knew and my mother was given a copy. When Patty and I visited her she also gave us a photocopy of the Jones Family in 1916. Despite it's poor quality, it's one of my favorite items.

This picture was taken at Lillian's home in Harrison in 1916. The adults from left to right were:

John Lewis Amiss (husband of Elizabeth Jones Amiss)

Elizabeth Jones Amiss (daughter of Alexander and Elizabeth)

Leo Jones

Melissa Jones (wife of Leo)

Tom Jones

Norine Jones (wife of Charles Fred - our grandfather)

Ella Jones (wife of Tom)

Margaret Jones (wife of Harley)

Fred Jones (our grandfather)

Harley Jones

The children from left to right were:

Lillian Amiss Mears - daughter of John and Elizabeth

Edith Jones Breving - my aunt

Charles Jones - my uncle

Irma Jones - daughter of Margaret and Harley Jones

At least I had the good sense to have Lillian identify the people in the picture.

Lillian died just short of the age of 100 after suffering a fall in her home. She, too, is buried at New Haven Cemetery near Harrison.

More pictures from the luncheon:

Lillian, Patty Volz and Laura (Lillian's daughter)

Back Row:

Laura, Rosemary, Sue, Jeanne,

Front Row:

Patty, Lillian, Nan

Bottom Row: Kathy and Sue's son Spencer