Advent Calendar: The Christmas Tree

The Christmas tree was (when I was growing up) and continues to be (now that I am grown and have children) an important part of my family’s Christmas tradition. I am slightly obsessed with ornaments and have more than I can fit on my tree. When we had an addition put on our house, we made sure that there was at least one little section where the ceiling was high enough to have a really tall tree.

Starting with the Christmas trees of my childhood: below are pictures of our Christmas tree from 1960. Until I was about nine years old, we always had a real tree. Sometimes we bought it from a lot and sometimes we would cut our own. This was a real adventure with my Dad – he was extremely picky, and I believe I followed in his footsteps in that respect. The type of tree would vary – pine one year, spruce another, fir still another. That made decorating it a challenge, since different trees have different types of “gaps,” different needle lengths, and branches of different strengths. Some ornaments look good on one type of tree but not another.





The biggest nightmare with the Christmas tree were the lights. Remember how the strings of light used to operate? If one bulb went out, the entire string went out. I believe that one of the great inventions of the 20th century was the string of lights that would stay on, no matter how many individual light would go out. My husband and I laugh at the Christmas tree decoration scenes in Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story every time we watch it (and we have watched it many times).

As you can see from the pictures, there was a lot of tinsel on our tree, and that was a major component of our tree decorations. It took hours to do properly (no throwing it on the tree!) and was, we believed, a real art. (My husband and I put tinsel on our tree for a couple of years, but with cats … that didn’t last.)

Then my mother bought one of those silver aluminum Christmas trees, and my brother and I thought it was an abomination. I believe she would put blue Christmas balls on it.

Later, when we lived in Texas, my mother bought a nice-looking artificial tree, which is the best you can do in a part of Texas that has mostly scrubby trees. We started to collect ornaments and used to have some beautiful old glass ornaments, but I don’t know what happened to most of them. The oldest ornaments I have are some that were made by a friend’s mother. If I have time in the coming weeks, I will try to feature some of my favorite ornaments.

One of my favorite Christmas tree memories is described in Memory Monday: Visiting with Grandma Brinlee. My Uncle Leroy let me pick a tree to cut down and we decorated it with strings of popcorn and ornaments made with the silver liners from cigarette packs.

My husband and I buy real trees, the tallest ones we can fit in our house, and although I am still picky, I guess I have developed more of an eye and can pick out a good-looking tree fairly quickly (provided there are any good ones on the lot). Our daughters can and do provide plenty of input on the choice. We try to buy it the weekend after Thanksgiving and leave it up until my daughter’s birthday (also Orthodox Christmas), January 7. The smell still transports me to some of those Christmases from my childhood.

Orphans and Orphans: Searching for Preston Moore

I just wanted to find my great-grandfather’s oldest brother, Preston E. Moore.

It seemed that this should not be too difficult. I was flush with success at finding my great-grandfather Harlston Perrin Moore on a Texas Death Certificate and then, not long afterwards, finding his family in South Carolina – just where my mother had always said we “had family.”

There were two main possibilities: Preston had stayed back in South Carolina with the rest of the Moore family, or he had come out to Texas with his brother Perrin Moore. The first did not seem likely: my third cousin Jo Ann S., a skilled and tenacious researcher, had not been able to turn him up after the 1860 census as she had the other three children in the William Spencer Moore and Emily Tarrant family – Anna Jeusha Moore, Commodore Worth Moore, and William Brewster Moore.

However, Jo Ann had also lost track of Perrin Moore after the 1860 census because he had gone out to Texas in 1877 and nothing she had found before this indicated that any members of this family had gone to Texas. Ergo, Preston Moore must be in Texas. So the first thing I did was to look in Texas, specifically the Dallas area, for Preston E. Moore.

A glance at the date of birth of Preston Moore – circa 1843 – suggests a strong third possibility: lost in the Civil War.

But I was optimistic. Didn’t families tend to travel in groups when they migrated? As it turned out, Harlston Perrin Moore and Martha Lewis Moore did travel in a family group – with Martha’s Lewis siblings. I could not find Preston E. Moore in Texas.

After I obtained a copy of H. P. Moore’s Confederate Pension Application from the Texas State Archives, I realized that I would have to start searching for records of Preston E. Moore’s Civil War service. H. P. Moore was just old enough to have served, and his service was in one of the “old men and little boys’” units, the 2nd South Carolina Reserves. His older brother Preston, however, would have been old enough to have served in a regular unit.

Preston became my first “reverse orphan,” and I became a little obsessed with learning his fate. I spent much of my first Memorial Day after getting hooked on genealogy searching for Preston Moore in the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System. There were no Preston Moores from South Carolina. There were, however, P. Moores and P.E. Moores. However, I could not really match up any of the P. or P.E. Moores listed with South Carolina units with our Preston; I could eliminate some who were identified in unit histories as being other people, but believed that I would have to wait to find more detailed histories of the other units until I could know where to start tracing what happened to Preston. Preston would have to remain “in limbo” for a while.

A few months after this I obtained a copy of the will of William Spencer Moore, the father of Preston and H.P. Moore. I tore open the envelope and read: “…should my said wife ever marry then I will and bequeath that said Estate both personal and real be sold and the one third of the proceeds thereof be given by my hereinafter Administrator to my said Wife and the remainder thereof be equally divided among my beloved Children Share and Share alike Viz Preston E. Moore (should he be living), Harlston Perin Moore Commodore Worth Moore William Brewster Moore & Anna Jerusha Moore.” That brief parenthetical phrase – “should he be living” – made my heart sink.

The will was dated 25 July 1865, more than two months after the end of the war. I had to face the fact that the most likely scenario was that Preston E. Moore had died in the Civil War. But how could I find him among all the P. Moores and P.E. Moores from South Carolina?

Once again, I let Preston languish in limbo for a while; and to be honest, I had just about given up hope of finding him. But I could not forget him. I always dutifully entered his name in the search box of any new database I came across that had any remote chance of turning him up.

This was the first thing I did when I learned that there was a Civil War Prisoners of War database on Ancestry, and two hits came up: the first brought up an image from a list of prisoners of war at Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania, with Preston Moore’s unit given as the 37th Virginia. The second had a Preston E. Moore from Anderson District, SC (this piece of information was what made me dance with joy in the certainty that this was “my” Preston Moore), with his unit listed as the 37th Virginia, followed by two words which were difficult to distinguish. A check on Footnote turned up a number of pages in the Compiled Military Service File pointing to quite a checkered history: illness, AWOL, desertion and capture, taking the Oath of Allegiance to the United States, and enlistment with the U. S. Marine Corps as a condition for release. Preston was even incorrectly identified as killed in battle at the Rappahannock River, only to turn up again on a Receipt Roll for clothing at Guiney’s Station right around the time Stonewall Jackson died there.

There was so much information on Preston Moore!

There was too much information on Preston Moore.

The Two Preston Moores

Orphans and Orphans: The Two Preston Moores

[Part 2. Part 1 Searching for Preston Moore]

Something just did not fit. There seemed to be too much information on this Zelig-like Preston; he was in too many places and they did not always fit together. He appeared to have been both in Fort Mifflin (following the Battle of Gettysburg) and among Confederate deserters picked up and incarcerated by Union forces in Nashville, Tennessee. Moreover, his enlistment with a Virginia unit (apparently the 37th Virginia Infantry Battalion) was puzzling, as I had no indication of the family having any recent connections to Virginia.

Judging by his father’s will and the 1870 census for South Carolina, Preston Moore did not return to South Carolina after the war. I checked the 1870 census for Preston Moore in Virginia, and it was unnerving to find him there, in Washington County: born around 1844 (close to the 1843 date indicated by the 1850 and 1860 censuses), with wife Mary. The census indicated that he could not read or write, but the 1860 census for Anderson County, South Carolina had indicated that he attended school, and I knew that his brother, my great-grandfather, could read and write. Too many puzzle pieces did not fit, and I began to suspect that there were actually two Preston Moores.

A search of the 1860 census in Virginia turned up a Preston Moore of the right age in Kanawha County. So could there have been two men named Preston Moore in the same unit? The “U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865” and “American Civil War Soldiers” databases contained the information that solved the puzzle: both men served in units with similar names - the “other” Preston Moore in the 37th Virginia Infantry, and “my” Preston E. Moore in the 37th Virginia Cavalry.

At about this time my generous “history husband” returned from a business trip in Pennsylvania with a gift: J. L. Scott’s 36th and 37th Battalions Virginia Cavalry (1986, H.E. Howard, Inc.). The 37th Virginia Cavalry was originally organized as Dunn’s Battalion, Partisan Rangers, with many recruits taken from the South Carolina counties of Greenville, Anderson, and Pickens, and was later mustered into service as regular cavalry – the 37th Virginia Cavalry – on 3 November 1862. Hence the appearance of a South Carolina man in a Virginia unit.

Preston was listed on the roster of the 37th Battalion Virginia Cavalry in Scott’s book:

“MOORE, PRESTON: enl. in Co. E. Deserted and took oath, Dec. 29, 1863, in Knoxville, Tenn.”

To complete Preston’s record of service, I returned to Footnote, which by this time had added more Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers for South Carolina. This time I found Preston E. Moore in the 2nd South Carolina Rifles, which was actually his first term of service:


- He was enlisted for service on 29 October 1861 by 1st Lt. Jo. Berry Sloan.





- He was recommended for discharge due to disability by O. M. Doyle, Asst. Surgeon, Moore’s Battalion.


[Transcription:

Army of the Confederate States
Certificate of Disability for Discharge

Corpl. Preston E. Moore of Capt. D. L. Donnald’s Company F 1st Batt. Rifles Provisional Army was Enlisted by Lieut. Jo. Berry Slone of the 1st Regmt. of Rifles at Anderson Co. SC on the twenty ninth Day of October 1861 to serve for three years or during the war. He was born in Anderson Dist. State of South Carolina, is Eighteen Years of Age five feet five [inches] his fair Complected Blue Eyes Sandy hair and by Occupation when Enlisted a farmer. During the last two months said Soldier has been unfit for duty Thirty Days.

Camp Johnson…………………D. L. Donnald Capt.
May 1 1862……………………Commander Company]


- He was approved for a Certificate of Disability for Discharge by Company Commander Capt. D. L. Donnald and was discharged on 3 May 1862.


[Transcription:

Camp [illegible]
May 1st, 1862

I certify that I have carefully examined the said Preston E. Moore of Captain Donnald’s Company, and find him incapable of performing the duties of a soldier because of general weakness – not having, in my opinion, sufficient vigor of constitution to enable him to discharge the duties incumbent on him as a soldier.

I think the welfare of the service requires that he be discharged.

O. M. Doyle
Asst. Surg.
Moore’s Battn.

Discharged from the service of the Confederate States May 3rd 1862
John V. Moore
SC 2nd Battn.]

At some point after his discharge, he re-enlisted for a second term of service in the 37th Virginia Cavalry:


- He was on a List of Rebel Deserters who took the Oath of Allegiance to the United States Government “between Dec. 16 and 29, 1863, and, after confinement for a period of 10 days, were then released” – in his case, from Nashville on 11 January 1864.


[Transcription:

(Confederate.)
M/37 Battalion/Va.
Preston E. Moore
Pvt. 37 Bt. Va. Cav.
Name appears as signature to an
Oath of Allegiance
to the United States, subscribed and sworn to before R. M. Goodwin, Capt. & Asst. Pro. Mar. Genl., Dept. Cumb., January 11, 1864.
Please of residence: Anderson Co., SC
Complexion: Fair; hair: Light
Eyes: Gray; height 5 ft. 6 in.
Indorsement shows: “Roll of Prisoners of war released on taking the oath of Allegiance at Nashville, Tenn., January 11, 1864.”
Hd. Qrs. Prov. Mar. Gen’l, Dept. of the Cumb’d, Nashville, Tenn.; Roll No. 521]

Scott’s description of the conditions in Tennessee during the winter of 1863-64 (J.L. Scott , p. 57) make it easy to understand why so many Confederate soldiers deserted: “The 37th Cavalry and Jones’ Brigade were in poor condition. The winter had posed great hardship on the men and equipment. Many were without blankets, some were without shoes. Returning from Tennessee one man froze to death in the saddle and frostbite was common.”

- Illness was also common: Preston was admitted to the General Hospital of the U.S.A. on 11 January 1864 for acute diarrhea, transferred to the Provost Marshall on 13 January 1864, and released on that same day.




That is the last I know of Preston E. Moore.

I doubt if I will ever learn his ultimate fate: when and where he actually died and is buried. Some day I hope to visit the area of the Nashville battlefield, which has not been preserved but does have a few roadside historical markers. Preston may have been buried in an unmarked grave somewhere nearby, or he may have made it partway home to South Carolina, desperately ill and fighting the bitter cold, before he died.

I think of Preston every Memorial Day and remember him often at other times.

His name will not be forgotten.

Sources:

Census

Spencer Moore household, 1850 U.S. census, Anderson County, South Carolina, population schedule, Eastern subdivision, dwelling 637, family 633; National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, roll 848. Accessed via Ancestry.com.

Spencer Moore household, 1860 U.S. census, Anderson County, South Carolina, population schedule, 42nd Regiment, dwelling 951, family 961; National Archives Microfilm Publication M653, roll 1212. Accessed via Ancestry.com.

John D. Young household, 1860 U.S. census, Kanawha County, Virginia, population schedule, Clendennen Post Office, dwelling [not visible], family 387; National Archives Microfilm Publication M653, roll 1356. Accessed via Ancestry.com.

Henry Myers household, Preston Moore family, 1870 U.S. census, Washington County, Virginia, population schedule, North Fork township, dwelling 290, family 295; National Archives Microfilm Publication M593, roll 1681. Accessed via Ancestry.com.

Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, National Archives and Records Administration

Preston E. Moore, compiled military record (corporal, Company F, 2nd South Carolina Rifles): Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of South Carolina, Microfilm Publication M267. Accessed via Footnote.com.

Preston E. Moore, compiled military record (corporal, Company E, 37th Virginia Cavalry, variously listed as battalion and regiment): Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Virginia, Microfilm Publication M324. Accessed via Footnote.com. (Note: I have not listed the records for the “other” Preston Moore separately because the two sets of records are listed together.)

Online Civil War Databases

Ancestry.com. Civil War Prisoner of War Records, 1861-1865 [database on-line]. Selected Records of the War Department Relating to Confederate Prisoners of War, 1861-1865; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M598, 145 rolls); War Department Collection of Confederate Records, Record Group 109; National Archives, Washington, D.C.

Ancestry.com. Historical Data Systems, comp. American Civil War Soldiers [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1999. Original data: Data compiled by Historical Data Systems of Kingston, MA.

National Park Service: Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System. Online database (http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/).

Other

J. L. Scott: 36th and 37th Battalions Virginia Cavalry. 1986, H.E. Howard, Inc.

Typescript of Will of William Spencer Moore, dated 25 July 1865. Copy provided by South Carolina Department of Archives and History,


Final note: This experience has taught me that reconstituting a Civil War service record is no small feat. Units changed – as attrition or recruitment dictated, they became smaller or larger units, disappeared, changed status from irregular to regular, or were swallowed up by other units, often with a different state affiliation; units also had many different nicknames and may have been most often referred to by their commanders’ names. A soldier’s name may have appeared in many different forms, and the records of different soldiers with the same name may have been combined. I have used and am continuing to use this experience in tracing some of my other “orphans” who perished in the Civil War.

Blog Carnival Site Problems and COG Deadline Extension

Since the blog carnival website has been down and I may have to spend time "scooping up" any articles that did not get submitted via e-mail any way, I am extending the submission deadline by a day "or so." So keep those e-mail submissions coming!

Memory Monday: A Day in November

I had other plans for this Memory Monday.

Then I started looking through a photo album for a picture to go with the dessert recipe I am submitting to the GeneaBloggers’ Cookbook. I started to flip through to the photos from Christmas (Christmas is when we cook the dessert and eat it) and opened to some photographs from November.

November 2003. It wasn’t that long ago, but the photographs brought back memories of the day in November when we found them, memories which had started to become dim until I caught sight of their sweet faces in the photo album. We only knew them for two or three weeks, but I don’t want to forget them, so I decided to do a photo tribute to them for this Memory Monday instead of my originally planned article.

We found them at church, right outside the parish hall:

“Mom, did you see that?”

“See what? Where?”

“There was a kitten, just there, behind the ashtray urn.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“Look, it’s running behind the bushes.”

A little black shadow darted past. Then a little orange shadow followed.

I sent one daughter down to the far end of the parish hall, posted the other halfway down, and stood guard at the end near the doors. We finally captured four kittens: two black ones, one mostly brown calico, and an orange tabby. They were small and hungry. We looked for the mother cat but could not find her and could not find anyone who had seen her. Well, some people drop babies off on church doorsteps…

We left our younger daughter in our van with the four kittens and some milk in a bowl from the parish hall kitchen. My husband, older daughter, and I went to church. Afterwards the news leaked out that there were kittens in the van, so a herd of children ran over to get a look. Unfortunately, their parents were not in the market for kittens.

We took them home. Our four grown cats were not exactly delighted at their arrival. Especially Rocky, our adoptee from the animal shelter who was going to be displaced as “Bedroom Cat” for a while. For the next couple of weeks he would just have to get along with R.B., BooBoo, and Pipsqueak. We moved the kittens into our bedroom, which has a long master bathroom attached.

We cannot have eight cats. Not even five.

We spent the next three or four days in a furious publicity campaign at school and at work. At the end of that time we had homes promised for all four kittens, but would be keeping them for another week or two while the families made preparations; the very last kitten was to be driven up to New Jersey at the end of three weeks.

It was the sensible thing to do. It was not what we really wanted to do.


We will always have fond memories of the time in November when the “church kittens” visited our house.


They liked to eat a lot.





Then it was time to bathe.



And then maybe scratch…



Perhaps explore a bit…





Or get into fights…





And then be held…one at a time



Or sometimes two (one on each knee)…



Or even three …



And then it was time to sleep.

Carnival Submission Site Still Not Working

As far as I can tell, the Carnival submission site is still not working. I have received several e-mails from people who have received no confirmation of their submissions, and no notification has been sent to me for these articles, either.

If you do not receive e-mail confirmation when you submit your article, that means that I have not received notice of your submission.

For the time being, it is probably best to notify me by e-mail (with the URL of your blog) that you are submitting an article to the Carnival of Genealogy.

I am "trolling" blogs the best I can and making note of "Orphans" articles I find, but I may miss some. I apologize again for any convenience.

GeneaBloggers’ Cookbook: Snack Bars

(Younger daughter enjoying a snack bar on Christmas morning, together with Rocky)

I first found the recipe for these snack bars back when I was in college. They’re sort of like fudge in between oatmeal cookies, with pecans in both the fudge and oatmeal parts. They are one of my family’s two favorite Christmas desserts, the other one being Bohemian Kolaches.

Snack Bars

1 12-oz. package semi-sweet chocolate pieces
1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
Butter or margarine, softened (1 cup + 3 Tablespoons)
2 cups pecans, chopped (or more if you really love pecans)
Vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1-3/4 cups packed light brown sugar
3 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups quick-cooking oats
3/4 teaspoon salt

In a double boiler over hot, not boiling, water (or in a heavy 1-quart saucepan over low heat), mix chocolate pieces, sweetened condensed milk, and 3 Tablespoons butter, stirring occasionally until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Stir in 3/4 cups chopped pecans and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Remove from heat; keep warm. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 13”x9” baking pan. Into large bowl, measure flour, brown sugar, eggs, baking soda, salt, 1 cup butter, and 1 Tablespoon vanilla. With mixer at low speed, beat until well mixed, constantly scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Increase speed to medium and beat 3 minutes, occasionally scraping bowl. With spoon, stir in oats and remaining nuts until well blended. Press half of dough onto bottom of baking pan. Spread chocolate mixture over dough. Drop remaining dough by teaspoonfuls to cover chocolate mixture. Bake 30-35 minutes (the original recipe had a longer baking time, but this seems to do it for me in my glass baking pan). Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Invert pan on cutting board. Cut lengthwise into four strips; cut each strip into 12 pieces.

If you are encountering problems with the Carnival of Genealogy submission form

just send me a note (by e-mail using the Contact button at the left or in a comment on this article) with the URL for your blog and I'll include your article in my list of submissions.

Thanks to Apple and Carol for alerting me to this problem!

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Sunday afternoon update: The COG submission site still seems not to be working, so please feel free to submit articles in an e-mail to me using the Contact button on the left of the blog or in a comment, and I'll make sure you are included on the list. I sent a message to the Carnival site team, but have not received a reply yet.