This is a hard topic because in 24 years of this journey, I have had many favorite discoveries! Each favorite discovery was the catalyst for the next favorite discovery but I will today try to focus on the events that lead up to one of my earliest ones. This discovery came in 2003 along with the another favorite discovery, the fact that my Smith Family ancestors were instrumentally involved in the founding of the the Nine Mile United Methodist Church in Indiana. Of the sixteen found members, twelve of these members were directly connected to our Smith family.

In 2003, I had been visiting my son and his family in Michigan. I was living near Chicago at the time. On my return home, I decided to take a detour. Instead of exiting I-69 onto I-94 and heading west to Chicago, I decided to continue south to Fort Wayne, Indiana area. Nine Mile Indiana is just south and west of Fort Wayne. I had made good time so far on my journey home. I had no deadline for getting home and I calculated in my head that I could spend an hour or so trying to find this church and the graveyard that I thought my Ancestors may be in.

So I headed south and after about 30 minutes or so found my exit, then the church and graveyard. The graveyard was a good size but I went in search of the oldest stones in the cemetery. It was then that I found James Smith and his children, Mary Ann, Kesiah, Charles, Barbary and a granddaughter Susannah. I had taken some pictures and wandered the cemetery for a bit to see if I found any familiar names. After thirty minutes or so I thought I ought to get back on the road.

As I was getting ready to leave, a nice woman came from the house across the street to see me. It turned out that she was the pastor of the church. We visited briefly. I explained what I thought was my connection to this area and the church. She asked if I wanted to go into the church, she would unlock it for me. I told her that I would love to. I asked if there was a restroom that I could use before I started my journey to Chicago. It would surely take me a bit longer to get home now. I would be traveling on I-80 across Northern Indiana before meeting up with the interstates that circle around the Chicago area. The interstates near Chicago would be like parking lots, jammed with commuters trying to get home from work and the last thing I would want to do is be looking for a restroom in  traffic jam!

I entered the church and found a lovely sanctuary for worship. It had beautiful windows and a wonderful painting behind the alter. I sat quietly in the pews feeling a special energy as it surrounded me. The tears flowed peacefully down my cheeks. I was moved in a way that I had never felt before. People were speaking to me and assuring me that I belonged there. Minutes drifted, five minutes, ten minutes and before I knew it I had sat there thirty minutes lost in my thoughts. It was as if a strong magnet kept me firmly planted on that pew. In that moment I knew this would be a place I would return to again and a again.

I left the peace of the sanctuary to see if I could find the restroom. The pastor had told me it was down in the basement in the far corner. So I followed the stairs down into the dark abyss of the basement. Placing my hands on the walls, feeling my way down the stairs, I carefully stepped on one stair at a time with the hope of finding a light switch. At the bottom of the stairs, I found one. I flipped the switch and it turn on a ceiling light in the middle of the fellowship hall. Just enough light to show me a path to the bathroom door across the room.

The room was your typical fellowship hall with a small kitchen area and several tables for people to gather. It looked like they were used regularly for what appeared to be adult christian education or Bible study. Nothing seemed to be geared towards children’s Sunday school lessons. To my right as I exited the restroom towards the stairs, I could see something hanging on the wall. I decided to find a few more light switches to get a better look at this room. Once I found them and turned them on, the room was now nicely illuminated. My attention was drawn back to the wall next to the stairway.

Hanging on the wall was a 1906 quilt made by the Ladies Aid Society. My other passion in life is quilting. I had trouble containing my own excitement. I stepped forward to get a better look at this quilt. The blocks were called Crazy Quilt Blocks which were common at the turn of the century. There really wasn’t a pattern for each block. They just kept adding fabric until the block was the size that they wanted. Then the blocks were sewn together to form the quilt.

Much to my surprise, each small piece of fabric in the 20 blocks of this quilt had a name or two hand embroidered on it. At this point in my search, I did not know for a fact that this was my family church but the energy in my body told me that it was! So I got my camera out once again and started taking pictures. First the whole quilt and then close ups of each of the blocks. I had to record this information. I did not know who on the quilt would turn out to be related. This was a snapshot of the people who belonged to this church in 1906. A snapshot of the people who lived in this area 59 years after my family came to the area and formed this church.

I spent the next few weeks and months trying to record all the name on each block. There are one hundred and twenty three families and two hundred and sixty three church members listed on the quilt. My intention was and still is some day to put these families and this quilt in a book.

By now, my quick hour long detour has lasted for several hours, much longer than I had planned but every minute of my time spent in that church that day is today cherished as a favorite discovery!

Happy Hunting,

Jan

When I went to write this post I realize that I did not have all the photos of the blocks on my external photo  drive. It may be that they are not in digital form.  They may been some of the last prints that I had developed and maybe hanging out in a photo book somewhere. It was about this time when we bought a new camera which enabled us to save our photos digitally on out computers.  If i can not locate them then it looks like I will need to take a road trip this summer to get these pictures. It has been a while since I have visited my family church.

#52ancestors