Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about an ancestor who died too soon, Diana’s great-grandmother, Mary Margaret (Peterson) Creer. We discuss Mary’s Danish parents, their immigration, and settlement in Spanish Fork, Utah in the late 1800s. Mary married Charles Cannon Creer in Manti and had a wedding reception in a white brick house Charles built for his bride. Mary was the mother of eleven children, but had an accident that shortened her life. Join us as we talk about Mary’s life and stories shared about her by a great aunt.
Transcript
Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro 269. Gone to soon Mary Margaret Peterson Kreer Welcome to research Like a Pro a genealogy podcast about taking your research to the next level. Hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited Genealogist professional Diana and Nicole are the mother daughter team at family Locket dot com and the authors of Research Like, a pro A Genealogist guide with Robin Wirthlin. They also co-authored the Companion Volume Research Like a Pro with D N a, Join, Diana, and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go.
Nicole (41s):
The sponsor of today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is Newspapers.com, the largest online newspaper archive. Hello everybody. Welcome to research Like a Pro.
Diana (46s):
Hi. Nicole. how are you today?
Nicole (48s):
Really good. How about you?
Diana (50s):
I am doing well. I thought I would share a new book that I’m reading, which has been so interesting. It’s titled The American Farmer in the Eighteenth Century A Social and Cultural History. It’s by Richard L Bushman And I read some of his other work before. So when I saw this, I knew I had to get it. I think it was actually discussed in one of the institute classes. I took a while back, And I ordered it and it’s been sitting on my shelf. So I decided to get it out and just start reading a little bit here and there. So here’s what the Amazon blurb says about this book. To give you an idea, in Eighteenth Century, three quarters of Americans made their living from farms.
Diana (1m 33s):
This authoritative history explores the lives, cultures, and societies of America’s farmers from colonial times through the founding of the nation. Noted historian Richard Bushman explains how all farmers thought to provision themselves while still actively engaged in trade making both subsistence and commerce vital to farm economies of all sizes. The book describes the tragic effects on the native population of farmers’ efforts to provide farms for their children and examines how climate created the divide between the free north and the slave south. Bushman also traces mid-century rural violence back to the century’s population explosion, an engaging work of historical scholarship.
Diana (2m 16s):
The book draws on a wealth of diaries, letters and other writings, including the farm papers of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington to open a window on the men, women and children who worked the land in early America.
Nicole (2m 28s):
Ooh, wow, that sounds great. And I have loved Richard Bushman’s other work too. He’s a great historian
Diana (2m 35s):
And he’s very readable. It is interesting. It keeps your attention. It’s a great resource though. If anybody else has a farm family, I would give a shout out to the book. And of course, almost everybody with a farm family. Do we have anybody in our family history who wasn’t a Farmer back in the day? Well, on my southern lines, the English lines, we had some minors who, you know, mined in England and some other occupations, but lots of farmers. Our announcements for this week, We have our Airtable quick reference guide available in P D F download on our website and we’ve had so many good comments from people who have used that to learn how to use Airtable and they’re just loving it.
Diana (3m 21s):
We also have our Research Like, a Pro Webinar series for 2023 ongoing. We are excited to hear from Heidi Mathis on Saturday September 23rd at 11:00 AM Mountain Time. She will be discussing her ancestor Berkhart slag and she’s titled this Amid 19th Century German case with indirect evidence. Her description is who were the parents of Berkhart Slag, a mid 19th Century German immigrant Indirect documentary evidence Points to parents. Does C N A evidence support this hypothesis? So the really fun thing that goes with all of our webinars, we have reports from the actual presenter on the research they did.
Diana (4m 3s):
So we’ve also been getting some great feedback on people really appreciating seeing how someone writes up their research in a report and especially if it has d n with it, how the D n A is integrated into the report. So if you’re interested, you can certainly still join us for that Webinar series and we have recordings of all the past ones in the year. you can do some catch up. As always, join our newsletter for coupons and to get the Links to our latest blogs and Podcasts and learn what’s going on with us. And then we have some fun conferences coming up this fall. We’ve got the Utah Genealogical Association, summative Excellence, that’s 22 and 23 September.
Diana (4m 44s):
This is all virtual and several interesting classes per track. So I’ll be teaching about pre 1850 census and ethnicity estimates and locality research in your D N A work. And then for the East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference, Nicole, And I are both doing on-demand lectures. So I’ll be talking about pedigree triangulation and Nicole will be discussing how to confirm an ancestral line. And then we will be in person and together for the Professional Management Conference by the Association of Professional Genealogists. And we have a fun class. We’ll be teaching together how to incorporate multiple income streams to increase your company’s revenue.
Diana (5m 27s):
And then I will be doing a livestream class creating user-friendly client reports that incorporate D n a analysis. So we’re really looking forward to the fall and these conferences and just really enjoying being with all of you.
Nicole (5m 43s):
Our listener Spotlight today is from Janet in Connecticut. She says, I just listened to your Shoot em up Dick podcast, which I enjoyed a lot. I was wondering, with two Living Williams, if it was part of a German naming tradition where the first name was the church name and the second was the family name, which the child usually went by. In my case, it made some searching. Very confusing. I wonder if the first William was ever called Henderson. Of course it could just be one or both parents just loved the name. So enjoy the podcast. Thank you Janet for that. And. it was fun to consider that possibility when you sent that in. What are your thoughts on that Diana?
Diana (6m 22s):
Well, I love that idea. I had never even thought of that This family was pretty far removed from their German Roots. But you know, maybe that was the case. I’m so curious about that. Now, So I, just wanted to look at the names of the other male children in this family. So we have William was the oldest and then there’s a son named Martin and he always met by Martin And. then there was a Francis and then a John Monroe. And then you know William Dick Schultz, So I. Don’t know it’s possible. I’m not sure if Francis was a German church name Martin. I don’t know. I think that’s a interesting idea though.
Nicole (7m 3s):
I remember earlier in the Schultz family, the more German ones, they all were named Johann something, Johann Martin, Johann, whatever. Yep. Interesting. And then William Henderson, I don’t know that we know if he ever went by Henderson.
Diana (7m 16s):
Well his daughter was named Henderson and she was the child that was born after he died. And so they named her after him. And she always went by Henderson and looking at the records. He really went by w h a lot. Yeah, we really saw just initials. However, the 1880 Census does have him as William H. Schultz, but the census records can be different things. And he is William in the censuses with his family.
Nicole (7m 44s):
What about his father? Hickman Monroe Schultz. Did he go by Hickman or Monroe?
Diana (7m 49s):
He went by Monroe or a
Nicole (7m 51s):
Tm. So he went by his middle name. That’s
Diana (7m 53s):
Interesting. Yeah, but there is thing that has him as Hickman because I would not have made that one up. That’s kind of an interesting name. And it’s not a family name. So. I. Have no idea where that one came from. Yeah,
Nicole (8m 4s):
I was looking at his sources. Hickman Monroe, he went by Monroe and almost everything. But then here on this Texas land title, he went by Hickman M.
Diana (8m 13s):
Right. Maybe he felt like that he wanted to be very proper there. ’cause even on his marriage record, he is Monroe or it actually kind of looks like M O N O R E. Like there was a misspelling.
Nicole (8m 24s):
And then, let’s see, who else in the Schultz line went by their middle name? Your grandpa
Diana (8m 28s):
Charles Leslie. Yes, he went by Leslie.
Nicole (8m 31s):
And what about William Houston?
Diana (8m 33s):
William Houston. I saw him also a lot as W H. That’s a good question. Let’s see what he is in the records.
Nicole (8m 40s):
I’m looking now in 1900. He was Houston Schultz. Yeah,
Diana (8m 44s):
He probably was a mix.
Nicole (8m 46s):
Also William H in a lot of these and W eight.
Diana (8m 49s):
Yeah, I only heard everybody talk about him as Grandpa Schultz. you know, So I really don’t have letters or anything talking about ’em. I would say perhaps Houston. Yeah. I
Nicole (9m 0s):
Wonder if that just kind of became a family tradition and wasn’t so much a German thing at that point. More of just a family tradition.
Diana (9m 7s):
Could be.
Nicole (9m 8s):
Yeah. Well that was a fun thing to talk about.
Diana (9m 11s):
Well, names are always interesting. It’s always something that you wonder about. And often we don’t have any information. All we can do is guess about why people went by one name and and not another. And often they went by different names throughout their life. Well, let’s get to our subject for the day. And this is my great-grandmother, and her name was Mary Margaret Peterson. And she married a man named Charles Cannon Kreer And I titled this blog post that I wrote. This was a 52 Ancestors post and the prompt was gone too soon. So I wanted to write about Mary because she was gone too soon. She died in her mid fifties and her oldest daughter was my grandmother.
Diana (9m 56s):
Florence Matilda career. Kelsey was my grandmother. Mary Margaret died when Florence was expecting her fifth child. And. I have a picture of the last family photo. It’s in 1925 and it’s just sad to think that Mary would miss meeting most of her grandchildren and her youngest children were, they were pretty little and so she would miss them grow up, seeing them get married, strike out on their own. So now that I am older, I think, wow, that would’ve been so sad to have missed out on all my grandchildren and seeing them grow up, which is so fun. So even though I never got to meet her, we have a lot of stories and photos And, it really sheds light on her life.
Diana (10m 43s):
And I’m also really impressed with what she was able to accomplish in the face of some pretty significant challenges to her life. So Mary was born to Danish immigrant. So she is full Danish, even though she was born in Utah. She was born in on 25 April, 1871 in Spanish Fork. She was the third child of Soren Peterson and Margaret Matilda rig Tripp. And her parents had each joined the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Denmark and immigrated to Utah as young people with their families. And in Spanish Fork. They met and got married in 1867 and started their family.
Diana (11m 23s):
Margaret’s first daughter, Hannah Matilda died soon after birth. And then she went on to have a son, Charles, and then my great-grandmother, Mary Margaret, and then she had seven more children. So as the oldest daughter who who survived Mary must have been a large help to her mother. Sadly, Margaret died on 11 May, 1886 after giving birth to her 10th child, Florence Irene. So Mary was only 15 years old at this time and she lost her mother and then she had these seven younger siblings, including a newborn baby. So I can only imagine what that would’ve been like for her. Then the baby Florence Irene died at only five months old.
Diana (12m 3s):
So that must have been heartbreaking for this 15 year old young woman who likely taken care of this child who’d lost her mother and then this baby. Wow. I really considered how difficult that would’ve been. Her father Soren married again in 1889, just three years later. So the new wife, Mary Francis, probably took over the housekeeping duties and the children and Mary Margaret was free to start her own family. Newspapers.com is your ultimate resource for discovering your family’s history. Explore more than 800 million newspaper pages in their vast collection spanning three centuries.
Nicole (12m 28s):
Newspapers.com is your gateway to exploring the past, with papers from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and beyond. Trace your family’s journey and uncover the extraordinary tales of your ancestors through newspaper stories, birth and marriage announcements, obituaries, photos, and much more. For listeners of today’s show, Newspapers.com is extending a discount of 20% off on a Publisher Extra Subscription. Just use the code “Family Locket” at check out. Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity. Alright, Let’s talk now about Mary Margaret Peterson’s marriage and family. So Mary and Charles Cannon Creer were married on March 25th, 1892 in the beautiful Manti Temple in Utah. A wedding reception was held in their honor in the white Brick house that Charles had built for his bride. That’s pretty unique to know about that. Located across from the city park in Spanish, Fork, the two story home had a living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs. The house was enlarged several years later to accommodate their growing family. Mary had 11 children all born in the white Brick house.
Nicole (13m 9s):
Mary lost two of the children at birth, but she was able to raise nine of them. She named her first child, Florence Matilda after her oldest and youngest sisters who both died as babies. Well, I didn’t know that. Yeah,
Diana (13m 23s):
And it’s fun because I actually have a digitized copy of the wedding announcement where it says, your presence is requested at the wedding reception of Mary Ann Peterson and Charles c Creer at their residence. So he had already built this house and she was going to get to move into quite a nice house. I have been to that house, it’s still in Spanish Fork across from the park. And it’s just so neat to think that he had the resources and the ability to, whether he built it himself or had help, I would imagine he’d had help. But it’s neat to visit that house and think of my grandmother growing up there and the wedding reception that was held there.
Nicole (14m 6s):
So. it says on her her wedding invitation that her name was Maryanne Peterson,
Diana (14m 11s):
Mary m Oh, so Mary. Margaret.
Nicole (14m 15s):
Got it. And so she was clearly named after her mother. Yeah,
Diana (14m 19s):
She was. It’s fun to see naming patterns. Well, Mary had a daughter, Clara, who I always knew as Aunt Cal, and she took a writing class in her later years and wrote all these great stories and histories about her siblings and her parents. So, I have all of those, and it’s been really neat to be able to draw on those for some of these stories. So she wrote about the accident that shortened Mary’s life after mother and dad had been married for about 15 years. She met with a severe accident which rendered her an invalid for the rest of her life. I was about 16 years old when this accident happened, but I remember it well.
Diana (15m 1s):
Father had a dry farm in Thistle Valley. He had taken the family up to the little Cabin he had built on the farm. It was only about 15 miles from home, but it took a buggy and a wagon to transport us to and from. Mother became anxious to go home. By the time we had packed up, a storm was approaching, the house was on the top of a hill, and we had to go down a steep dugway to get to the main road. Mother decided to walk down the hill. She took two of the children with her and took a shortcut. A stiff wind was behind her. She lost her balance and fell. She broke her kneecap. In those days, the doctors in our town were not too experienced in treating this kind of a wound. They treated her improperly and bone in her leg decayed.
Diana (15m 43s):
She was taken to a bone specialist in Salt Lake, who operated on her three times, was unable to correct the situation she suffered with this pain for 16 years before she died. That is just horrible.
Nicole (15m 56s):
It’s really hard to imagine that nowadays when a simple broken kneecap could be fixed so easily. Yeah,
Diana (16m 3s):
And I actually have a friend who just broke her kneecap and she’d had both of her knees replaced, and she said the kneecap was way more painful than either of the replacements. So now that I know that, it makes me even feel worse for her that apparently it’s just really, really a painful thing to have a broken kneecap.
Nicole (16m 24s):
Oh, and that’s awful that she had to live with that pain for 16 years and then died so young.
Diana (16m 30s):
Yeah, she really did have some, some challenges in her life
Nicole (16m 34s):
While Clara or Aunt Cal also wrote about her mother’s talents in music and storytelling. What a gem that we have. This she wrote, Mary had two exceptional talents. She was very musical and a great storyteller. Her father, Soren Peterson, bought her one of the first organs to Spanish Fork when she was very young. She showed unusual musical ability and became the organist of several organizations in the church. She was often the accompanist for the leading vocalist in the city. Her instrument was the organ, but she could play the piano well whenever she could. Even though Charles was a Farmer, he was the private secretary to his father William. While he was in the state legislature, his business took him to Salt Lake City.
Nicole (17m 14s):
Once in a while, he kept his business affairs to himself, but he loved to surprise the family with unusual gifts. When he came home on one occasion, he was so excited about a special piece of freight that was coming on the next train. It was a gift and a surprise for Mary When it arrived. It was in a large crate. The family was all in awe when they saw the biggest and most elegant upright piano they had ever seen. It didn’t take Mary Long to sit down at the piano and play some of the greatest music they had ever heard. Charles’s surprise gift was complete, and Mary’s joy was immeasurable. Most of the girls learned to play the piano. Charles brought home a mandolin for Mary to learn to play. This also gave her a lot of enjoyment from then on, even during the sad times, there was music in the home.
Nicole (17m 56s):
Many times she would tell a story with a musical accompaniment. The children could not get enough of this kind of entertainment. As soon as she would finish a piece, they would eagerly say, play it again. Play it again. She was a great storyteller. She could read a story and retell it in a more interesting way than the original version. She was very creative and had a great imagination. Occasionally she would tell a story and accompany herself on the piano.
Diana (18m 20s):
I love to think of her doing that and the family gathered round her. It’s fun because I inherited some of her musical talent because I too learned to play the organ young and accompanied in church and still do that to this day. you know, I haven’t always done it throughout my life, but that is my current assignment in our church. And I. Remember when I was little and learning to play the piano, it just came so easily for me. It just was a joy. It was easy. It was definitely a talent. And my grandmother, who was Mary’s daughter, would come into our living room and she would just sit there and listen. And I had a book that had all these old time tunes in it.
Diana (19m 2s):
And I would play those for her, and she just loved it. I thought she must have been thinking about her own childhood when she would sit and listen to her mother play. Probably brought back a lot of memories for her. Oh,
Nicole (19m 13s):
That’s so fun. And I. Love to think of her being so creative and telling stories and making up her own accompaniment on the piano while she’s telling stories. It just, what a fun, unique person.
Diana (19m 23s):
I know she must have just had that ability to play by ear, which I need music. But if she was making up her own things, I mean, can you just imagine how fun that would be? What, I wish we had a recording that would just be so neat. Too bad. Well, besides this legacy of music, she also left a legacy of sewing. My grandmother, Florence, learned to sew from Mary, her mother, who dressed her six girls impeccably, and usually she had matching dresses for each Easter, Christmas and the 4th of July. So my grandmother also sewed clothes for her daughters and continued sewing throughout her life. Quilts, pillows, a nightgown for every granddaughter at Christmas and more.
Diana (20m 4s):
And then my mother also sewed matching dresses for my sister and me. And I continued the tradition by sewing matching dresses for my daughter. Music was a large part of the career home, and as I already talked about, I inherited that musical talent for playing the piano in organ when I got married. My great Aunt Clara, which we’ve also talked about is Aunt Cal gave me the glass compote that belonged to Mary And I. Wish I knew more of the compote story. I have thought that maybe it was a wedding gift or another surprise brought home by Charles. I wrote a whole blog post about it, about honoring your heritage with heirlooms. But it does connect me to my great-grandmother that I never knew. And I feel very honored to have received it because there were a lot of great-grandchildren.
Diana (20m 48s):
And someday I’ll pass it on to one of my granddaughters connecting her to her ancestor. So it’s fun because after I wrote this blog post, a reader, Kim Kinsey has experience in researching China crystal and silver. And she researched the compost because I had a picture of it in a previous blog post about this heirloom. And she found out that the compote is the aurora clear pattern made by the brilliant glasswork company circa 1888. And So I went to their website, And I found a bowl that is almost identical to the compote. So she noted that the company went bankrupt in 1892 and the molds went to the Huntington Glass Company. So there is a fun website called replacement.com that dates this pattern as made between 1880 to eight and 1902.
Diana (21m 35s):
So that might include the Huntington years, but it seems really likely that the compote could have been a wedding gift in 1892. you know, it’s just right in that era. So that’s really fun. And I do know that my grandmother inherited a bunch of dishes from her mother. Unfortunately, my Aunt Erie pulled the shelf down that had all the dishes and they all broke. So we don’t have any of those dishes. So somehow that compote must have been in a different place. Well, obviously it was in a different place. It wasn’t at my grandmother’s house, it was at Aunt Cal’s home. So thankfully something survived that was handed down to me So. it was pretty neat.
Nicole (22m 12s):
That’s so neat that your great Aunt Cal gave you that when you got married. How old was Imi when she knocked all that down?
Diana (22m 20s):
A child? She was just a child. Oh, If. you can imagine. Oh, my poor grandmother, she was living too and just, she loved nice things. My grandmother really loved nice things and she grew up in that beautiful home, you know, that her dad had built. And then she moved up to Idaho and lived literally in a shack, you know, like an eight by 10 shack. And so there’s a funny story that she brought kind of a nice t trusso in a trunk, and she had some really fancy nightgowns and the neighbor ladies all thought that they were formal dresses. So, you know, my, my grandmother left this really kind of nice, nice home. And I. Think she had a pretty nice growing up except for the fact that her mother, you know, was incapacitated.
Diana (23m 5s):
And my grandmother as the oldest child would’ve had to take care of the younger children as well. you know, very similar to what her mother went through. Anyway, I love reading the stories and learning and, and thinking back about what it would’ve been like for these Ancestors.
Nicole (23m 20s):
Yeah. And thanks to Aunt Cal for writing this all down.
Diana (23m 23s):
That’s really a good lesson for all of us to make sure we write some memories. you know, every child might have a different memory of their growing up, but every single one of those memories is valid and important for our descendants.
Nicole (23m 36s):
So true. Well, thanks everyone for listening. As we talk today about Mary Margaret Peterson, our ancestor who died too soon. We hope this gave you some ideas for something you could write about your own family and help preserve the memories of your Ancestors for the future.
Diana (23m 53s):
Right. Thanks everyone for listening, and we’ll talk to you next time. Bye-bye.
Nicole (23m 57s):
Bye-bye. Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like, a Pro and Research Like a Pro with d a on amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at family Locket dot com slash services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday. Subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket dot com slash newsletter. Please Subscribe rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.
Links
Gone Too Soon: Mary Margaret (Peterson) Creer 1871-1926
Richard L. Bushman’s book: The American Farmer in the Eighteenth Century: A Social and Cultural History (this is an affiliate link).
Sponsor – Newspapers.com
For listeners of this podcast, Newspapers.com is offering new subscribers 20% off a Publisher Extra subscription so you can start exploring today. Just use the code “FamilyLocket” at checkout.
Sponsor – Newspapers.com
For listeners of this podcast, Newspapers.com is offering new subscribers 20% off a Publisher Extra subscription so you can start exploring today. Just use the code “FamilyLocket” at checkout.
Research Like a Pro Resources
Airtable Research Logs Quick Reference – by Nicole Dyer – https://familylocket.com/product/airtable-research-logs-for-genealogy-quick-reference/
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Research Like a Pro Webinar Series 2023 – monthly case study webinars including documentary evidence and many with DNA evidence – https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-webinar-series-2023/
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RLP Study Group – upcoming group and email notification list – https://familylocket.com/services/research-like-a-pro-study-group/
Research Like a Pro with DNA Resources
Research Like a Pro with DNA: A Genealogist’s Guide to Finding and Confirming Ancestors with DNA Evidence book by Diana Elder, Nicole Dyer, and Robin Wirthlin – https://amzn.to/3gn0hKx
Research Like a Pro with DNA eCourse – independent study course – https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-with-dna-ecourse/
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