Walker 1 Corbett Walker Lynn M.

Raymond ENGL 1103 10/05/2013 You Would Never Know Learning about my past is not something I have ever really done. There have been times where my mom has told how we are part Indian, German, and Irish. There have been times where she has told me that we are related to the Wright Brothers and to President McKinley. I have heard stories from my grandpa about how he grew up. I however, have not ever looked into my genealogy to see how it all connects. How am I part German? Who were all these people I am related to? Were there any interesting stories to be told about them? For this project I am focusing in on my Moms side of the family most of who are from the St. Louis, Illinois area. Before I get into my family that extends from my grandparents, I think that it would only be proper that I first give you a little bit of information about them. First off, my grandparents are Carol Susan Webb Springer and William Oran Springer, though he goes by Bill. My grandparents have a pretty interesting story behind them. They were both born in East St. Louis, Illinois at the Christian Welfare Hospital, my grandma in 1939 and my grandpa in 1940. They then went about their elementary years not knowing each other until they met each other during the 6th grade when they were 12 years old in 1952 (Springer, C). My grandma lived in a one story house that had two bedrooms and one bathroom with her parents and sister. While my grandpa lived in a one story one bedroom house with his grandparents and had to sleep in the living room growing up. To show how severe the circumstances were, out of the entire house, there was only one closet. I will go on to say that my grandfather attended Belleville Junior

Walker 2 College, Southern Illinois University and even went onto Xavier College. Now how about their relatives? If we go back to my Moms great great great grandfather on my grandpas side, we can link my family all the way back to Germany, the capitol of which is Berlin. This great great great grandfathers name was Charles Myers. He came to America to marry a French woman named Virginia. However, it was later found out that he soon moved back to Germany after getting married. But how do we get from A to B? Well, Charles and Virginia had a daughter named Cleo who married William McNulty. They then also had a girl who they named Cecelia whom married Oran Springer. These two then had a boy who they named William, who is my grandpa. This however is the least interesting story that I have found of my family. The most interesting story has to be with my four greats grandfather on my grandfather's side. The biggest reason that I would say that this person is so interesting, is because he was a slave owner. His name was Nicholas Darnall, and he resided in Henry County, Tennessee. A piece of information that makes this even better is the will of Nicholas from August 18, 1827. It is a copy of the original will and it contains some very disturbing information. The first person that Nicholas starts dividing items to goes to his wife. It goes like this, Item 2. To my dearly beloved

Walker 3 wife, Sealy Darnall, I give and bequeath three hundred dollars in Tennessee Bank bills and a horse to be valued at 60 dollars, and her saddle, and a cow and calf, and two ewes, and a sow and pigs, and a trunk and loom and wheel and cards and a bed and furniture and a table(Springer). To the rest of his eight kids, it read something like this. I give and bequeath to my beloved son, Thomas Darnall, one negro boy named Henry, to him and his heirs forever(Springer). When I found out that there was a slave owner in my family history I was almost excited because it was such an interesting thing. But it is still very disturbing to see things like him giving his slaves to his kids as gifts. Moving on to the next story, we come to a story about my great great grandfather on my grandmothers side. His name was Clyde McKinley. He was born on August 8, 1889 in Harrisonville, Ohio. However, for some odd reason he always celebrated his birthday on the 4th of July. Now this story starts off pretty nicely. His parents, Olive and Oliver got married pretty early in life and by the age of 22, his mom had already had four kids. Unfortunately though, he was the last child because four months after Clyde was born on December 12, 1889 his mom died of typhoid fever. After the death of his mom, Clydes father moved back to Hiawatha County, Kansas. Before doing this though, he sent his kids off to live with relatives and neighbors. Clyde ended up living with an older couple in his hometown of Harrisonville. His adopted parents were Preston Thorton Talbott and Rebecca Catherine Talbott. Preston enlisted into the Ohio infantry on October 15, 1861, and was discharged in June 1865 as a Captain. Before discharging though, Preston served in the Civil War, fighting in many important battles such as Gettysburg, Lookout Mountain to Atlanta, and the March to the Sea. The Civil War

Walker 4 started in South Carolina on April 12, 1861. The war ended in Spring, 1865 (Civil War Facts). He even served under the command of General William T. Sherman. One last interesting fact about Clyde is that in a census from 1900, Clyde is listed as a servant for his adopted parents Preston and Rebecca. Moving on to the next set of relatives, we come to the Myers. My moms great Grandma Tannehill comes from this family. Now I will say that this one family had seemed to have some issues. There were seven kids in this family, they were: Mae, Hedy, Cleo, Grace, Fred, Albert and Clarence. Along with these seven kids, there were also three stepchildren Dewey, Ed, and Esther. Now just about every single child in the family has some weird and interesting story behind their name. To start this off, stepson Dewey killed a police officer while he was transporting alcohol during the prohibition. He then served 20 years in jail. Then we have Mae who was listed as a servant/ cook in the 1910 census. It was also said that Mae burned her sister Hedys face with an iron during a temper tantrum. Moving to Hedy, she sadly died in a house fire. Grace committed suicide. Fred changed his last name from Myers to Meyer because he was so angry with one of his brothers. I would also like to mention Cleo Myers, whom would be my great great grandmother was married to, husband, William McNulty. He was a mail carrier for East St. Louis for 10 years, but on August 4, 1930 he drowned in the Okaw River during a family gathering.

Walker 5 Through this project, I have obviously learned more about my familys history than I would have imagined, but never thought it would have been so much fun. As I have gone through my familys history uncovering bit by bit what went down and how and why it did, I feel like a detective. Getting to uncover the hidden stories that very few know about and find out how people died in my family or what unusual things happened in their lives. One of my favorite parts of this is that I can now go and share these stories and that is even more fun. Something else I noticed through pictures is how similar we are to each other in features. An example would be of when I was looking at some older pictures, I stumbled upon one of my uncle that I almost mistook for myself. There is even a picture of my great great aunt that looks just like my mom. It is almost scary how much we resemble each other, even over several generations. I can tell you right now that I am not done looking through my families past and am going to continue to learn more and more.

Walker 6 Works Cited "Civil War Facts." Civilwar.org. Civil War Trust. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. Springer, C and Springer, W. Personal Interview. 18 Oct. 2013. Springer, Carol and William Springer. Springer and Webb. 30 Nov. 2006. Print. Springer, Carol and William Springer. Journal Files. 1930. Springer and Webb. Image. Springer, Carol and William Springer. Tannehills. Springer and Webb. Image. Springer, Carol and William Springer. Clyde McKinley. Springer and Webb. Image. Springer, Carol and William Springer. Will. 1827. Springer and Webb. Image. Springer, Carol and William Springer. Husband. Springer and Webb. Image.