I knew almost from the start of my research that the lady on the right in this photo was my GGGrandmother. She always looked the same. The lady with the scowl. I knew that she was my Grandparent because we had so many photos of her. There was the one with Alvin Smith holding the baby and Della Sparks, one with Dora Jackson, Ruth and Ruth’s baby seated outside, pictures of her seated with all of her children and their families standing behind her. The list goes on… I thought I knew her name. My Grandmother Lillian wrote on the back of this photo “Della and her sister”. I later learned that her maiden name was Denney. I searched and searched but did not find a Della Denney. Eventually I discovered an Oella Denney. Oh could that be her? Sure enough it was. Now mind you these people are from my Smith line. Grandma Lillian was just trying to identify and document these pictures for her husband because it was the right thing to do. My Grandfather, Everett, (her husband) was the grandchild of this woman. She died when he was 21 years old so surely he would have known what her name was. She named a daughter Della. Maybe Grandma Lillian just assumed her name was Della. It doesn’t matter now. So for now we just know the lady with the scowl is Oella Denney Smith. She always looked like that I am told.

For years I wondered who this other woman was, the one on the left who seems to have a slight grin! My only clue was a note from Grandma Lillian on the back of the photo. It said Della’s sister. Remember that the name Della is wrong! I circulated this photo with all of the Denney researchers I had been in contact with in hopes that someone would be able to match this photo with a Denney woman in their family. None of the researchers seemed to know who she was.

The more I looked at the photo, I decided that these two could not be sisters. They did not look at all alike. I know that all sisters do not look alike but there are always some similarities and these two had none. One had a permanent scowl but the other had a bright face! Maybe she is squinting but I did not want to think that was it! She has a smile! How could the lady with the scowl and the lady with the smile be sisters…. In my mind it just can not be. Yet this woman was very much apart of the lives of these relatives of mine. She was at the Baptisms, the picnics and all the family gatherings even after Oella has died. So who is she? SO I kept looking at her and wondering where she belonged.

I would find clues and sometimes not realize that they were clues. Oella was married to James W Smith. He died in 1913. When his brother, Joseph, died in 1923, I found the death record for him in Chicago. His remains were brought back to Fort Wayne, Indiana for burial. I found his obit in the Fort Wayne News paper and in his Obit there was a mention of a sister, Mrs. Ralhman. I could not find a Ralhman in Fort Wayne. For years I searched for Rahlman, Ralhmen, Ralman, Rehlman, Relman and every version I could think of but no one was found. James and Joseph did have sisters. All of the sisters which were older than them, had died long ago. The sister named Susan was younger than the brothers but I knew nothing about her. I wondered if this could be her and who had she married? They also had a sister Martha She was the youngest sibling, could it be her? I would later find that Martha had married Henry Hauss. They settle in the neighboring county of Huntington where she would die at the age of 21, in 1877. So it is not her. Who could she be?

So I started to search for a woman born between the years of 1850 and 1853 whose first name was Susan or Susannah. Eventually I would add the criteria of a surname (married name) beginning with “r”. After a few weeks of searching, there she was Susannah Rehnen. Could this be her? It would take some time but eventually I would obtain Obits for Susannah, her son Bernard, his son Parnell and Parnell’s son, James who died in Larkspur California in 1994. I did a search on a website called anywho.com and much to my surprise there was a B. Rehnen who was listed in Larkspur, California. I have used this tool several other time successfully to find children who are still living who had been listed in their parent’s obits. Usually I write down the name, address and phone with a note about who I think they are and add the information to my research files. After finding several items that lead me to draw the same conclusion, I would write a generic note explaining who I was and that I am looking to confirm family history information. I provide them with them with information that I am trying to resolve and how they can contact me. Sometimes they do get back to me and sometimes they do not. Not everyone is as interested in their families past as I am.

I had been looking at this photo and getting to know this woman for years. I just had to know who she was. She was another lost relative who spoke to me every time I looked at her. She was just begging me to find her. This process of elimination had been so slow that I took a bold step. I picked up the phone one Sunday afternoon and I called the phone number listed for B. Rehnen in Larkspur, California.

A sweet elderly woman answered the phone. I explained to her who I was and how I thought I was related while she quietly listened. Eventually she broke her silence and said, “well you know, you are not actually related to me, it was my husband that you were related to and he has been dead for some time. ” Then she went on to tell me that his sister still lives in the Fort Wayne area and that I should call her, Susan Katherine Brown.

After talking to Susan Katherine Brown, I was able to identify this sweet woman as Susannah M (Smith) Rehnen (pronounced Wren like the bird…as she explained), Susan Brown’s Great, Great Grandmother. Susan Brown is named after Susannah M Smith Rehnen. Susan Brown shared several other wonderful photo’s of Susan Rehnen and I was able to supply her with a few that she had never seen.

It would be a day that I would solve another one of the “Needles in my Haystack”. The “clue” on the photo would have helped me if it had said “James W. Smith’s sister, Susan” or even “Della’s sister-in-law”. Then again that would have made it too easy and I would not have learned so much about this part of my “Haystack”!

I am happily hunting through my haystack!

Jan

The families living near Nine Mile, Indiana are prospering. They are settling on the land, growing crops and growing families. Among these families is James and Susannah (Overly) Smith, John Miller and Hannah (Smith) Miller, Thomas and Emeline (Asher) Overly, Gabriel and Anna Miller, Charles and Sarah (Dilley) Miller, Benjamin and Letishia (Robinson) Davis have all have moved from Darke County, Ohio to Nine Mile.

James and Susannah have had three children since settling in Nine Mile, Indiana. They are Joseph (1847), John Francis (1849) and Susan M (1852). In 1851, James and Susannah’s daughter Margaret became the 2^nd wife of Benjamin Davis, after the death of his first wife Letishia. Their 2^nd daughter Mary Ann married Jonathan Kimble in 1853. Several of the children of John and Hannah Miller’s children have married and began their families too. Charles married to Sarah Dilley and they have 2 children, George and Hannah Jane. Gabriel had married Anna in Ohio prior to leaving for Indiana and Catherine married John W. Maddux. Growing families need a church to assist them in raising their children.

The following article is taken from the historical records from the Nine Mile United Methodist Church which has a flourish congregation to this day.

James Smith was one of sixteen founding member of the United Brethren Evangelical Church in Nine Mile, Indiana in 1853. The church is presently known as Nine Mile United Methodist Church. Interesting details emerge about James Smith and other founding members in a historical overview written for the churches 100^th anniversary which reads as follows:

“THE HISTORY OF THE NINE MILE Evangelical U. B. CHURCH” This church was organized at the home of John Miller by Rev. Casey with 16 charter members. Daniel and Lucy Ann Buskirk, sold one acre of ground for $ 10.00 to the trustees of the United Brethren Church, who were Gabriel Miller, Benjamin C. Davis, James Smith, Thomas Overly and Charles Miller, on January 3, 1853. For a period of five years, the meetings were held at the home of the John and Hannah Miller and at the homes of other church members, but in 1859, they erected a log church on the present grounds in section 7, Pleasant Township.”

Rev. P. Landen was then the pastor and dedicated the church. The membership continued to increase but the little log church was still their place of worship until 1868. In that year a frame building was erected. The new place of worship was called “Liberty Chapel”. For a few years the church had been served through the Ossian circuit, but in 1869 it was changed to the Zanesville circuit.

In 1879 the 27th annual session of the Auglaize Conference, of which this church was a member, was held at the Liberty Chapel Church. In 1891 Liberty was again placed in the Ossian Circuit which included Ossian, Bethel, Zanesville, Prairie Grove and Liberty Chapel It remained with Ossian until 1906 when it was changed back to the Zanesville circuit along with Bethel.

As it would turn out, our Smith family would play an important role in the beginning of this church.  All the families listed in the historical document are related to our Smith’s, some are inlaws, some are adult children, some are siblings.  

It is a wonderful church.  My husband and I visited it in 2003 on the 150th Anniversary.  I am sure that the congregation must have thought I was nuts because I had tears rolling down my face for most of the service.  I was very moved to be able to sit in a church which had such a rich connection to my family history.  Later the congregation would learn that I was the 3 X Great Granddaughter of James Smith, one of the 16 founding members of the Nine Mile United Methodist Church. My Grandfather, Rev. Everett A. Smith, himself a Methodist Minister, would have been proud to have known that his family, our family, played such a large role in this church.

Our Smith family members still go to the Harbor Beach United Methodist Church and Lowell United Methodist Church today. Worship has been an important part of our family heritage.

Happy Hunting,

Jan

Many years ago when I first received the box of photos, bibles and papers from my Mom which belonged to Everett and Lillian Smith, I found many interesting things that they had saved thru the years. This was one of the first items I found. It was a Valentine sent to Lillian from Everett. She received it eleven days before her nineteen birthday.

Lillian had lived most of her life in Flint with her Grandmother, Mary Florence. Lillian’s Mother died when Lillian was just short of nine years old. On a sunny but cold February morning, Mae Losee, hauled a basket of wet laundry to the clothes line with the intention of hanging them out to dry. After some time, Lillian realized that her Mother had not returned to the house so she went to investigate. Lillian found Mae slumped over the basket of wet clothes. She had died. On that day in 1914, her whole life changed in an instant.

Lillian and her younger siblings left Clio, Michigan to live with Mae’s mother, Mary Florence in her boarding house in Flint. Five years earlier, Mary Florence had lost her husband when he suddenly died. She left their thriving florist business in Clio to her daughter, Mae and her husband, George Losee, to run and bought a large house in Flint where she would run a boarding house. With no husband to support her, fifty-four year old Mary Florence would have to find a way to support herself. In 1914, the automotive industry was just getting a stronghold in the Flint Business Community. Mary Florence hoped that these workers would need housing, Her business flourished and she rarely had an empty room. A short five years later she gathered her daughter’s young children and brought them to the boarding house too. Lillian’s older brother Lester, who was eleven, remained with his father on the farm and lent a hand in the fields and in the florist shop.

Everett, meanwhile, was living in rural Wells County, Indiana with his parents, Alvin and Cora Smith and his younger brother, James Frederick. Alvin worked for a Dairy distributing milk to customers and local grocery stores with a small delivery wagon. Sometime around 1918, Alvin and Cora made the decision to move to Michigan. With the Auto Industry growing at a rapid rate, there were many new job opportunities. They decided as a family to go to Flint to see if Alvin could secure employment in one of the new factories. They pack up all their belonging including Alvin’s wagon and their single cow on a rail car and headed north.

Cora and Everett heading north driving an automobile while Alvin and James Fredrick made their way north in the rail car with all the family belongings. The wagon and the cow were brought as an insurance policy just in case Alvin could not immediately secure employment. Alvin stated to his wife, “In case this automotive stuff does not pan out !” Well, needless to say, it did pan out, Alvin got a job and so did his brother who came a few weeks later. They bought a single “lot’ on Term Street in Burton and built one house by 1920 and by 1922 they purchased a second lot and built another house. These Smith Families who were just getting by in Indiana were now prospering in Flint.

Some time in the fall of 1922, in the town of Burton, a local church held a Tent Revival Meeting which brought young people from all over Flint to Burton. Seventeen year old Lillian, her Sunday School class and her best friend, Bessie Calkins, were so excited to go.

Nineteen year old, Everett, and his fifteen year old brother, James Fredrick decided to go too. They were the “new kids on the block” and what better way to meet new friends? Being their Granddaughter and not knowing them as teenagers, it is hard for me to think of either of them as “boy crazy” or “girl crazy” but it is highly likely that was the common draw for each of them to attend the event that day. And they were indeed on a collision course to meet.

After that day and in the months that followed, they used every church event that they could to be together. Mary Florence felt it was safe for Lillian to see Everett if it was at a church event. It became obvious that Everett and Lillian were becoming a bit more than friends. Eventually Mary Florence, allowed Everett to come around to see Lillian more and more.

On Lillian’s nineteen birthday, February 25, 1923, her best friend Bessie Caulkins hosted a Birthday party for her and it turned into an engagement party when Everett proposed. It maybe that Bessie knew that Everett would proposed, I don’t know that .

They were married on August 28, 1923 by Joel B. Gass. Their love endured 55 years until Everett died in 1978.

Happy Hunting,

Jan