Archive for February 3rd, 2010

by Sherry Stocking Kline
February 3rd, 2010

Several last week asked me to post the close-up of Great-Grandpa Constantine ‘Tom’ Breneman’s horse (I meant to do that last week along with last week’s photo!) so here is my follow-up post!

Like many of you, I love horses, and this is a fine looking horse.  I’m guessing he was a dapple gray with darker mane and tail, but I suppose he might have been more of a cream color with dark mane and tale, like Dale Evans Rogers’ horse “Buttermilk”.

So many questions that I have with last week’s photo and this.  First and most important:

What was his name?   (the horse’s I mean)

What breed(s) was/were he?  In last week’s photo he looks to be a fairly tall horse.   Any horse lovers want to hazard a guess?

Did Great-Grandpa ride him, or was he strictly a buggy horse?

What year were these pictures taken?  I wonder?  I know with some detective work, I can narrow this down considerably.

Where was Great-Grandpa headed looking so spiffy?  Or was he just out for a drive?  Nearly all pictures we have of him, he is dressed in a suit, but in last week’s photo, he looks particularly spiffy.

I asked mom again this week “Was Grandpa a farmer?”

I knew that he lived on at least two different farms here, and she said that he did farm, but he really was more of a blacksmith, and did blacksmith work, rather than doing much farming.

His son, Otto or “Ott” as he was called, followed in his footsteps and had a blacksmith shop in Mayfield, Kansas. Those pictures are in a different box, but I will locate them and share here.

Neat!  I just love old photos, especially with horses!

Great-Grandpa Breneman was a Civil War veteran, but I’ve never seen a photograph of him in uniform.  I hope someday we run across one.

Related Posts:

Constantine Breneman and His Buggy Horse

My Poem to My Ancestors

Salinda E. (Rose) Breneman – Photograph Constantine’s wife,  Salinda, and her tombstone. Salinda and he divorced in later life.

Too Young to Die – Photo of Constantine’s son Albert Breneman,  his siblings, and another photo of Albert’s tombstone. Albert was killed in a Motorcycle Accident.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
February 2, 2010

My Tombstone Tuesday is Ruby L. Smith, buried in a small Smith Family Cemetery, Barren County, Kentucky, near the Temple Hill area.

Ruby L. Smith - buried in the Smith Cemetery - Temple Hill, Barren County, KY

On the Stone:

Ruby L. Smith
Mar 15, 1901
Jan 15, 1919

According to the Kentucky Death Record information I found online, Ruby was the daughter of L. H. and Sabina Smith.

What Did Ruby Die of?

She was so young that I had to wonder, what did Ruby die of at the age of not quite eighteen?  It was shortly after Christmas and the New Year?  Did she have flu?  Pneumonia? An Accident?

To get to this small cemetery, we crossed a bridge over a shallow but fast-moving creek that was rushing down the hill, then drove up a long, shady lane where the trees met overhead in places.  This seemed like a road, but it was narrow and may actually have been the home’s private driveway. It led past a home, past the small cemetery, and back to a field.

The home and the cemetery were on a hill that sloped away to a rolling little valley on the west (I think it was west, but I could have been turned around!) The cemetery was located past this home along the lane.

My first thought was that the home was deserted, as neither the yard  nor the cemetery had been mowed for some time.  But looking again at the photograph of the home that I took that day it’s obvious that there are flowers on the porch along with outdoor furniture.

I Kept Thinking About Snakes…

We parked our cars and hiked through the grass to the stones, (I kept thinking about snakes…) and all the time I was hoping to find names that I knew were “ours” but that day, it wasn’t to be.  That day, none of the names were familiar, so we went on down the road where we did find my mother’s great-grandfather’s farm, and then on to the Caney Fork Cemetery where we found numerous family members.

This cemetery’s proximity to other Smith’s that were our family leads me to believe that these Smith’s are related, and I was able to carve out some time today to do more research on this family.

From the death records that I’ve located today, Ruby is the daughter of last week’s Tombstone Tuesday, Lute H. and Sabina Smith.

Drat! The Name Fits But the Dates Do Not…

According to Lute’s Death Record, he was the son of William Basie Smith. (I’ve not done any fact-checking on these facts yet.)    There is a William in my Charles Smith family, but the dates are simply wrong for Lute’s father to be my family’s William.

I’m disappointed, but this small cemetery is very near to my great-grandparent’s farm, Charles and Virginia Hawley Smith, in the Temple Hill area of Barren County, Kentucky, and while they may not have been related, there is a good chance, too, that they were.

Another puzzle to solve, for another day, but as of today I have more clues to work with!

Other Related Posts:

Tombstone Tuesday: Lute and Sabina Smith Ruby’s parents.

The tombstone of  J. Thomas and Nancy A. (Smith) Harrison is just down the road a few miles in the Caney Fork Baptist Church cemetery. They may (or may not) be related to each other.

Warner LaRue Jones Tombstone. Warner was born in Kentucky to Willis and Martha Ellen Smith Jones.

George W. Smith & wife Lucy’s Tombstone

The Day the Serendipity Genealogy Angels Smiled