Last month I worked on my a few things that I had scanned into my computer a few years ago for my genealogy. I hadn't really looked at them very closely until recently and have found some really interesting information.
Among some of the most important documents was a telegram:
This sort of information is so valuable to people who study genealogy because often it's difficult to get dates or times on any important events in people's lives.
I've scrutinized this document pretty well. I was unsure if Oakfield, Wisconsin was the origination, destination, or both. H. E. Parratt refers to Henry Ezra Parratt, my 3rd great grandfather. "Father" refers to Henry's father, my 4th great grandfather, James Parratt. In 1874, February 14 was a Friday, and Sunday would have been February 16. James was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Oakfield, Wisconsin; one of my distant relatives has been to the grave site to confirm the marker.
"E. F. Parrott" was a little bit of a mystery because the last name was misspelled and because there was no one in the Parratt family with the initials E. F. I could be reasonably certain about this because James Parratt had immigrated from England aboard the Bark British Queen with his wife and children and their families June 28, 1842. The best solution to this quandary was if the sender was Evander W. Parratt. He was James' youngest child, but was about 24 years old at the time of the telegram.
The sender's name was not the biggest problem, however. To my knowledge, everyone involved would have been in Oakfield at the time of James' death, and it didn't make sense for someone to send a telegram across the small town of Oakfield when it cost in today's economy about $10.27 to send a telegram and $29.78 to receive it (at least that's how I interpret the charge at the bottom).
Yesterday I had a nice long conversation with Grandma's cousin Jalane. She and I have a common interest in genealogy, and she asked me if I was certain that my 2nd great grandmother was born in Oakfield. I said yes, that I had several sources to back up that claim. Then she asked where my 2nd great granduncle "Albie" was born. Lo, and behold! He was born at Lake Crystal, Minnesota on March 3, 1874! That meant that Alba's (his proper name) father Henry was likely in Minnesota at the time of the telegram! The two towns are about 327 miles apart with today's road system.
She wondered if Henry was in Minnesota at the time of the telegram because she had lived with Alba for a few years and he remarked about how his father had made a trip to Minnesota by wagon with his family because he wanted to do something different. He wanted to get out of Oakfield for awhile apparently. He eventually moved back, but this explained that Oakfield was only the origination of the telegram.
In my conversation with Jalane, I told her of Evander, pronouncing the name "ƏV'-ǝn-dr." She said that the family had pronounced it "Ē-VAN'-dr". After taking phone calls awhile, I can see someone thinking that Evander might be E. V. or E. F. since V and F sound similar.
So it seems that Henry, living in Lake Crystal, Minnesota, with his wife about to have a baby, and caring for a two-year-old baby girl, received a telegram from his youngest brother in Oakfield Wisconsin on Valentine's Day 1874 saying that their father had died in the middle of the night. Their dad would be buried in just two days. One can easily imagine the dynamics of the day as the scene unfolded.
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