Meat Shop on Main Street

The family business for my Read ancestors in Barren County, Kentucky was a butcher shop. My 3rd-great-grandfather Guilford Dudley Read ran a butcher shop from at least 1870 (he appears as a butcher in the 1870 US Census), if not earlier. The shop was G. D. Read & Co. His son Charles Read later took over the family business.

I have wondered about the location of the shop in Glasgow, Kentucky. I'm not certain this is the one, but a meat shop appears on the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map for Glasgow in 1916 (see image below, bottom right corner on East Main Street). There are also two other meat shops on South Green Street, but another piece of information confirms that at one time the family shop was on Main Street.

Source: Kentucky Digital Archive

In The National Provisioner, Volume 52, Part 1, dated 9 January 1915, there is a line about this butcher shop. This was the official magazine of the American Meat Packers Association. "The butcher shop on Main Street, Glasgow, Ky., conducted by Charles Read, has been destroyed by fire." Given a day for the fire to make it into the AMPA news, I suspect the fire occurred in the later half of 1914. I've asked a helpful researcher to look for a local news articles on the fire.

In a separate news clipping, from the 17 August 1922 Glasgow Republican, "Mr. Alvin Read who has been running a meat shop under the name Goff & Read, has gone to Indianapolis to make his home. Tuesday evening a telegram was received by his wife [my great-grandmother Elizabeth Lois Whitley Read] saying he was badly injured, and for her to come at once, and she left to be with him. We are not informed of the extent of his injury."

My Grandma Lois had an older sister, Martha Belle "Mattie" Whitley, who married Clifton Goff. He had a flour mill. My Grandfather Leo Read was living in the household of Clifton and Mattie Goff in the 1930 US Census in Glasgow, Kentucky.

The 1909 Sanborn Fire Insurance map shows the meat shop on Main Street, just around the block from the Barren County Courthouse. Although there is a meat shop on Green Street, given the date, I think the Main Street shop was likely the Read family shop.

Source: Kentucky Digital Library, 1909 Sanford Fire Insurance Map

Picking up on a family mystery

In January 2012, one of my early posts on this blog was on a family mystery regarding my 3rd-great-grandfather John O'Brien and daughters who may or may not have been sent to a convent in Illinois. In that post, I included a transcription of a death announcement from 11 February 1914 for Anna O'Brien, sister of my 2nd-great-grandfather John J. O'Brien.

Anna Maria O'Brien died on 10 February 1914 in Chicago, Illinois. I was looking around on Newspapers.com and found a clipping from the Chicago Daily Tribune of 12 February 1914, showing a probate filing for the estate of Annie O'Brien, by her half brother Michael Dooner and brother John O'Brien.

Source: Newspapers.com, Chicago Tribune 12 Feb 1914

It appears Michael Dooner died on 18 February 1918 in Chicago. I do not know much about his connection to the O'Briens. The Cook County Death Record Index states that he was born on 16 March 1853 in Illinois. He married Annie Byrnes on 19 January 1886 in Chicago. They appear in the 1900 and 1910 US Census in Chicago. I'm digging deeper into this in the hopes that it provides more information on the O'Briens.

Happy Mothers Day Weekend

Sending thanks to my Mom and all the other Moms out there on this Mothers Day Weekend. Have a great one everyone, looks like it will be a wonderful Sunday in the DC area.

My Mom, Spring 1970 in California

Friday Photo - Visit to the Met

In my travels I sometimes have short windows of time to see some great museums. Last week in New York I had two hours to go through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is probably one of the best I've ever seen, which says a lot when I have the Smithsonian museums in DC locally and have been to places like the Getty (Museum and Villa) in LA, the Albertina and Kunsthistorisches Museums in Vienna, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore, MALBA in Buenos Aires, the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico City, among others. Below is a selection of photos from my dash through the Met.

Photo by Patrick Jones, Met Museum NY, 1 May 2014

Photo by Patrick Jones, Met Museum NY, 1 May 2014

Photo by Patrick Jones, Met Museum NY

Photo by Patrick Jones, Met Museum NY, 1 May 2014

Photo by Patrick Jones, Ganesh at the Met

Photo by Patrick Jones, Met Museum NY

Submitting a FOIA request to the VA

Last week I wrote about a new lead on the search for the parents of my second-great-grandmother, Mary Alice Cain Read. It appears Mary Alice had a brother named Harl Cain. He joined the US Army in 1901, and was sent off to California as part of the First Battery, US Field Artillery. Harl filed a pension for his service in the Army, and his name appears in the pension index cards.

Using this information, I went to the National Archives to see if a copy of the pension application was on file. Unfortunately, the pension file is still with the Veterans Administration, but the helpful staff at the Archives provided me with information on how to request a copy.

In order to request a copy of the file, I had to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Veterans Administration. One can do this electronically by going to http://www.foia.va.gov/.  For fee purposes, FOIA requests are divided into three categories: 1) commercial requesters, 2) educational, non-scientific institutions and representatives of the media, and 3) everyone else. If you're in the 3rd category, it appears that you are only charged for photocopies after the first 100 pages (at 15 cents per page) and after time spent searching for records in excess of two hours. Fee waivers can also be granted if the requester describes why the disclosure of the information is in the public interest and not in the primary commercial interest of the requester.

I sent a signed copy of my information as an attachment to the email address for the appropriate VBA FOIA contact, and received a response later in the day. I don't know how long it will take to process the request, but I now have a case number. Hopefully the file will have information on others in the Cain family.