Sunday's Obituary - Albert Read

In the continuing search for information on the Cain family in Barren County, Kentucky, I looked back at the resources on Findagrave for Barren County. I found a new obituary posted on 29 July 2014 by Find A Grave member, Laura J. Stewart (#47412616) for Albert Shirley Read, brother of Charlie Read.

Source: Findagrave

The obituary appeared in the 9 November 1916 edition of the Glasgow Republican newspaper. Albert Read died a month before his brother Charlie.

Class of 1932

In June 2012, I posted this photo of my grandmother Blanche Allene O'Brien. I now know this was her senior picture. My guess is that she was 18 years old in this photo, or 19 if it was taken after November 1931.

Blanche Allene O'Brien - Photo source, Keith D. Jones

Today a package arrived from the helpful folks at Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis containing copies from Volume Seven, Number Nine of The Riparian yearbook. The head shot of Blanche is a match to the original photo that was in my Gumpy's papers. Back in July, I wrote about how I had found Blanche in the 1930 and 1931 Riparian yearbook from the Indianapolis Public Library's digital collection, but the 1932 Riparian was missing. Huge thanks go out to the staff at Broad Ripple who sent a set of high quality copies of the pages with Blanche.

Source: Broad Ripple High School, Indianapolis

1932 Riparian yearbook, page 10

Blanche was part of the yearbook and school newspaper staff in 1932 (something I also did back in the day in high school sixty years after Blanche).

The seniors in each class had a habit of writing a "senior alphabet" couplet for the yearbook. Blanche was featured as the letter "o" on page 18. "O stands for O'Brien, a real Irish maid, a charming young miss whom with pranks you can't 'fade.'"

Riparian yearbook 1932, page 37.

In the English class photo above, Blanche is first from the left on the second row.

It is great to have this, and this view of her last year of high school connects well with the post-graduation information on Blanche's beauty salon in Broad Ripple. She was clearly well liked in her class.

USCIS FOIA Stakeholder Meeting Next Week

Earlier in the week the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it will be hosting a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) Stakeholder Meeting in Washington DC on 20 August at 1:30pm Eastern. USCIS officials will talk about how they respond to nearly 140,000 FOIA requests per year and address topics of interest to USCIS requesters.

Since I have previously used the USCIS' FOIA services to obtain the alien case files for my great-grandparents Manuela Portillo and Plutarco Campuzano, I qualify as a stakeholder. This is a great opportunity for me to take a late lunch break and learn more about the process. I also have two new search requests pending for potential files on my 2nd-great-grandparents, Vicente Campuzano and Teresa Diaz Portillo.

For those not in DC, there may also be a phone option for participating. See the link above for USCIS to find out more information.

Potential breaks in the brick wall

Short of driving to Barren County, Kentucky to research, I have tried just about every possible online and available library resource to identify the parents of my second-great-grandmother Mary Alice Cain Read. Yesterday I tried a new tack in the search by reviewing what I already had on Mary Alice's children. Looking closely at an obituary for one of her daughters, I noticed a detail that I had overlooked which referenced a potentially living niece in Barren County. I was hoping that perhaps this person on the Read side might have information about the Cain family.

Using her name against public records in Ancestry.com and a Whitepages.com search, I was able to find a potential match. I took a leap that I might find them on Facebook, and sent an inquiry through the Facebook Messenger on the web to the niece's son. Within an hour I had a reply, with a suggestion to check with his Dad, also on Facebook. So I sent another message and went to bed.

This morning I received a reply, I've found some cousins! We're exchanging messages and they're checking local records to see if Mary Alice's parents names are listed in the funeral file from 1955. I'm glad I tried this alternate approach, and it really shows the power of the Internet to connect people across distances.

Photo by Patrick Jones. 7 Apr 2012.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Gardens at Dumbarton Oaks, DC.

Happy Birthday Dad

A special Happy Birthday to my Dad. The photo below is from last year's birthday dinner, which is also the same place as this year's birthday dinner. To many more birthdays.

Photo by Patrick Jones. Dad at Del Ray Cafe, Aug 2013.

A related post from 2012 is available here.