A fellow genealogist, Amy Johnson Crow, started the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge several years ago, in which participants are supposed to write about one of their ancestors each week for a full year.
Every year, I decide this is the year I will do it. And I never did.
This year was an exception, although, as you may notice, I'm about six weeks behind. So, who SAYS it has to start the first week of January? Well, Amy, perhaps, but I’m sure she’d be cool with my late start. At least it is a start, right?
So I decided to write first about my maternal grandmother, Ola Ethel Reed. Born 9 Nov 1889 in Tully Township near Convoy, Van Wert County, Ohio. She married my grandfather, Harry Adrian Wherry (born 3 May 1888), a telegraph operator, on Christmas Day, 1910. They had five children: Mary Agnes, who died as an infant in 1912; Genevieve Anita, my Aunt Jenny, 1915-2000; Harry Adrian Jr., 1918-2012; Juanita Maxine, my Aunt Max, 1920-2013; and my mother, Permilla Ann, 1925-2002.
When I was born in 1962, my family lived in Riverdale, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C. It occurred to me in recent years that, because she had been ill and died a year and two weeks later, perhaps she and I never actually met. I have probably asked my sisters that question, but I couldn’t recall, and I never thought to ask them during visits or phone calls. (My bad!)
Falling into the NewspaperArchive.com rabbit hole one day, a search provided me with a blurb in the “Personals” column in the Van Wert Times-Bulletin about family visiting Convoy, Ohio, to attend the wedding of my first cousin, Larry Webb (Aunt Jenny’s oldest son), and his bride, Diane Bagley, published June 5, 1963:
Here to attend the Webb-Bagley wedding Saturday night and also to visit their parents, Mr. and Mrs. H.A. Wherry of Convoy, and their sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Myron Webb of Convoy, were: Mr. and Mrs. Paul Codling and daughters, Paula, Patti, and Phyllis, of Riverdale, Md.; Mr. and Mrs. Harry A. Wherry Jr. and children, Robert and Luanne of Indianapolis; Dr. and Mrs. G.P. Bosscher and sons, Gerard Paul and James Robert, of Grand Rapids, Mich.
I was tickled, because that’s proof positive that Grandma Wherry and I did get a chance to meet each other when I was almost 10 months old. Grandma died on Aug. 24, just a week after my first birthday.
My cousins, all of whom are older than my sisters and me and also grew up close enough to visit regularly, have all told me she was funny and smiled a lot. One cousin recalls she had “fat arms” that flapped above her elbow. Well, I am definitely her granddaughter, as my arms are exactly the same. Thanks, genetics.
My mother often told me about how she and her siblings would get into arguments while playing cards, and grandma would threaten to throw the whole deck in the stove. And at least once, she made good on that threat, thus the arguing stopped. (Truth be told, I’d be willing to bet Aunt Jenny was one of the culprits; she was a mean card player who really hated to lose!)
Mom also said that grandma could play the piano and the organ, and that she was so talented all someone had to do was sing or hum a few bars, and she could play it. She also was an amazing cook. She and Grandpa Wherry became partners with Aunt Jenny and Uncle Myron, starting up a diner and auto service station at the corner of State Route 49 and U.S. 30, known as the Lincoln Highway and the first national highway to span from New York City to San Francisco, California.
While it’s now just a quiet country road, Ridge Road or “Old 30,” as locals call it, was for decades a main thoroughfare through north-central Ohio, heading west to South Bend and Chicago and all points west, and east through Mansfield, Ohio, to southern Pennsylvania and the Big Apple. Most likely, everyone who was anyone traveled that road, and many of them stopped at Webb’s to have a great meal and great desserts, including pies, for which grandma became famous.
In the bench that went with grandma’s upright piano was a ton of sheet music, so while she could play by ear, she also knew how to sight-read music. I remember looking at those sheets of music and seeing songs from “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Mame,” and others with songwriters names, such as Johnny Mercer. I believe Mercer had actually been a customer at the diner one time. I would love to know who else visited. I’ll have to ask Larry about that. He and his sister, my late cousin Rebecca Sue “Becky” Warren, grew up at what the family always called “The Station,” which also offered accommodations in tourist cabins that stood out back.
We still refer to it by that name even today, though it no longer resembles the house I remember. It had gone into disrepair after my aunt and uncle sold it in the 1970s (I think), but had been purchased and beautifully renovated by a young couple who let us cousins tour at our last reunion a few years back.
Grandma, I think, was the organist at the Convoy United Methodist Church, the same church I would grow up in after we moved there in 1966. So, while I never knew her, I was surrounded by her spirit. I truly believe that she has “looked after” me throughout my lifetime.
What I didn’t know until I started doing family research was that her father, my great-grandfather Frederick Reed, was a veteran of the Civil War. He served as a private in Co. G of the 2nd Ohio Heavy Artillery from 20 Sep 1863 to 23 Aug 1865.
But wait, I have 51 more of these to write, so I’ll save grandpa Fred for another week.
Cheers!
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