Libbie and George - things known and unknown

George Remington Beach has always been one of my family's heroes. Civil War soldier, businessman, living to a ripe old age of 92, etc. His wife Libbie has been in the background. We have a photo of Libbie, and her father Charles left a big footprint, but Libbie herself has been a bit of a mystery. Unfortunately, that is often the case with women ancestors.

My last blog was dedicated to George and his Civil War experience. Fitting, because Memorial Day is just around the corner. But in my family, we remember all of our dead on Memorial Day. So this blog is dedicated to Libbie and George, just two of the many people I've grown to know and love since I started "digging up my dead relatives."

Elizabeth Sunderlin Hause Beach

Libbie

My great grandmother Elizabeth (Libbie) Sunderlin Hause (1847-1917) was the second child and first daughter of Charles Hause (1817–1900) and Ann Maria Disbrow Hause (1823–1860). Charles and Ann were married in Tyrone, New York on 7 May 1845. Libbie was born two and a half years later, on 17 Dec 1847. Libbie was probably named after her maternal grandmother, Elizabeth (Betsy) Sunderlin Disbrow (1788-1862), who lived nearby. In 1850, Charles and family were living in the same general Finger Lakes NY area, in the Town of Starkey. Libbie was then two years old. Her father Charles was a farmer, and their land was valued at $4,900. Ten years later they remain in Starkey (Dundee post office), but by now the farm land was valued at $9,920 and personal property was valued at $5,800, and Libbie and her older brother were both in school.

Libbie’s mother Ann Maria Hause died later that year (4 Sep1860) at the age of 37, leaving 43 year-old widower Charles and three children: Lodowic (14), Libbie (13), and Charles (5). Less than eight months later, on 16 Apr 1861, Charles Hause was in Boston marrying a second wife named Martha A. Barnard.

Seven years later, Charles moved his family from New York's Finger Lakes to a farm in Dakota County, Minnesota. Dakota County is just south of both Minneapolis and St. Paul (see 1864 MN County Map, excerpt left). The farm was so large the transaction was described by the St. Paul press. An article listed the sales price ($13,000), stated the sum was paid in cash, and concluded, “We are glad to see such men coming into our State, and Dakota county will welcome him - we know.” (St. Paul Pioneer, Thursday, Nov. 26 1868).

By the time of the 1870 census, my great grandmother Libbie Hause was 22, living "At Home" with her farmer father, step-mother and siblings in “Egan Town,” Dakota County, MN. The farm was valued at $20,000; personal property was valued at $1,200. In addition to the family, the farmstead housed a Bohemia-born domestic servant and three farm laborers, two of whom had been born in Ireland. 

In 1959, when I was a kindergartner, my family moved from one Minneapolis suburb, Bloomington, to another, Burnsville. I remember vividly waiting for the drawbridge across the Minnesota River to close and allow us passage to our new home. That drawbridge (soon replaced by the 35W Bridge, infamous for its 2007 collapse) took us from Hennepin County, where I was born, into Dakota County, which was then my home until I left for college.

Charles Hause is at far right.

At the time I had no idea Dakota County held a piece of my family’s history. It wasn’t until years later that my father located the Hause farmstead. My father’s middle name was Hause, and I remember as an adult driving with him to see the land where his namesake had lived when he first brought his family to Minnesota. Today I don’t know exactly where it is, but I know how to find it and when I have time I will. Meanwhile, I have a photo that I believe is of the family farm, taken when Libbie’s father Charles was an older man. This is where my great grandmother spent her teenage and early adult years. Until, on 30 Aug 1873, 25 year old Elizabeth Sunderlin Hause married 34 year old Civil War Veteran George Remington Beach in Nicols, Ramsey County, Minnesota, and left Minnesota to live with her husband in Pontiac, IL.

George Remington Beach

 

George 

We met George Remington Beach earlier this month, when I wrote of his Civil War service. George was born in Beachville, Steuben Co., New York on 24 Apr 1838, the son of Robert Beach and Rhoda Douglass. His middle name—Remington—came no doubt from his maternal grandmother, Charity Remington Douglass. According to his personal papers, before George joined the Union Army, he was educated at a local common school and the Rogersville Union Seminary (Dansville, NY). At some time during his life he attended Bryant & Stratton’s “Cleveland Business College,” which even in the mid 19^th century was a chain of 35 institutions throughout the United States. George was a "clerk" when he enlisted, and throughout his life he worked in retail sales.

 

While my father was investigating his family tree, he wrote a brief history, including this reference to George and Libbie:

“Sometime after the Civil War, George and his brother John went west to Iowa. After a couple of years they back-tracked to Illinois where they settled in the small town of Pontiac, opening up a department store, i.e., groceries, dry goods, millinery.

According to Aunt Row [Libbie and George’s daughter Rowena E. Beach Marnie], her father had been told of the Charles Hause family who also had left western New York State and had moved to Minnesota. Their farm is just easterly of Cedarvale on Highway 13 in Egan. On a trip to Minneapolis that he took he met the Hause family, including their daughter, Elizabeth, whom he later married.”

George and Libbie were married 20 Aug 1873 in Nicols, Ramsey Co, Minnesota. T.W. Powell, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis, officiated. According to the marriage license, George was living in Iowa at the time. After their marriage, George and Libbie moved to Pontiac, Livingston Co., IL, where their seven children were born. Six lived to adult-hood.

Ann Maria Beach, 29 Jul 1876 – 16 Oct 1956

Buena Vista Beach, 1 Jan 1878 – 3 Nov 1951 (my grandmother)

Robert Hause Beach, 16 Feb 1879 – 10 May 1969

Ortha Beach, 17 Jul 1880 – 18 Aug 1885

George Remington Beach, Jr., 24 Aug 1882 – 22 Feb 1950 

Rowena E.  Beach, 27 Feb 1886 – 13 May 1983

Mary Joanna Beach, 16 Feb 1889 -- __ Feb 1969

Turn of the century postcard

I don’t know much yet about Pontiac, a small town about 100 miles southwest of Chicago, or about George and Libbie's family life there. But I know where to go to learn more, and will get to it when I can. What I do know is that in 1878 George was a taxpayer working at the Beach Brothers Dry Goods Store. In 1880 George was in the dry goods business (probably with his brother John), Libbie was “keeping house,” my grandmother Buena Vista was two years old, and a female servant from Norway lived with them.  

As of 1900, there was no live-in servant (the children are, after all, 10 years older!) and the family lives at 421 West Washington Street, three blocks from the Livingston County Courthouse (and now a parking lot). 

But, for some reason, in 1910, the 72 year-old George and 63 year-old Libbie are found living with their unmarried daughters (including my 32 year-old grandmother Buena) in Los Angeles, California.

Goodness. What were they doing in California?

My father used to share a story about his grandmother Libbie, who died the year before he was born. He said that she was an independent woman with independent wealth. When she wanted something she could afford, she simply got it. One day she announced to her family that she thought they should try this new form of transportation, the automobile. She wouldn’t listen to objections. Instead, she went out and later that day drove home in the first automobile purchased in the town. I believe (but don't know) that town was Pontiac.

During the last month I’ve been confused by George, Libbie, Los Angeles and cars. It has to do with what George did in California. I had never heard that George and Libbie lived in Los Angeles in 1910. The fact that the family lived there is clear from the census records. Unfortunately, George’s occupation is illegible! As I ventured further, looking at Los Angeles City Directories, I found a George Beach selling electric cars in California in the mid-1910s. Wow, my 75 year old grandfather sold electric cars in Los Angeles in the early days of the automobile!

But I also found George in Minneapolis City Directories. At first I thought, why not, they could have two residences. But when I looked more carefully I found a number of George Beaches in LA, including at least one other (much younger) George R. Beach. Perhaps these Georges were related. Perhaps George and Libbie went to Los Angeles because extended family was there. In any event, after spending a great deal of time learning about the early electric car industry, a reality check convinced me I was trying too hard to shove a square peg into a round hole. I put the electric car business aside, and was left with the question of why George and Libbie and family ventured from Pontiac, IL to Lost Angeles, California long enough to be caught in a census…. Then moved to Minneapolis, where they remained the rest of their lives. Someday I hope to find an explanation for their travels.

google street view

By 1912 George and his single adult daughters appear in the Minneapolis City Directory, residing at 2708 Colfax Ave. So. This home is called their homestead in Libbie’s will  dated 29 Jan 1917. Libbie died there at the age of 69 on 11 Sep 1917. The official cause of death was "chronic myocarditis with generalized arteriosclerosis and chronic diffuse nephritis." (Lupus? Could the family have gone to California for Libbie's health?) In 1920, George was living in the same home with unmarried daughters Rowena (my great aunt Row, whom I remember well) and her sister Mary (whom I don’t recall meeting). By then daughter Buena had married.

George lived long enough to remarry, at about 90 years of age. He married a younger woman: Effie Stites Barwise. On 16 Apr 1930 they are living at 3806 3^rd Ave. S., Minneapolis.  George is 91, living with 70 year old Effie and other members of her family, including the Census enumerator!

Lakewood Cemetery Chapel

George Remington Beach died 19 Mar 1931 at his home. He was 92. The official cause of death was "coronary sclerosis with chronic myocarditis." He is buried at Lakewood Cemetery, in Minneapolis, where both my parents’ ashes rest. Interestingly, his second wife Effie, married to him for a few short years before his death, is buried next to him, with other members of her family. Libbie, the mother of all of his children and his wife of almost 45 years, was buried years earlier in Illinois at the Pontiac City Cemetery (South Side Cemetery). At least one of my friends finds this an injustice and blames it on the “younger woman calling the shots when George died.”

When I was still living at home, and some times when I was visiting, on Memorial Day weekend we would travel to family grave sites. My father had a special knife he used to clean the sod that inevitably began to creep over the family grave markers, and a brush he would use to clean them. My sister continued this practice for a time after my father’s death, but neither of us has made a point to clean and/or maintain the graves of our dead relatives for some time. While my parents were living and we made these annual trips, we would have picnic lunches in the graveyards. Indeed, my parents carefully chose their own gravesite location at Lakewood Cemetery so that they would “have a view of the lake” and my sister and I could picnic there. We promised to bring liverwurst and crackers and have a fine time. We do visit their graves when we travel to Minneapolis, and have indeed picnicked there, complete with Nueske’s liverwurst. Perhaps we are all inspired by Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town! The next time I go to Lakewood, I will add George’s grave to my travels. And Aunt Row’s, and many other dead relatives buried in that famous Minneapolis cemetery. And when I do eventually travel to Pontiac, Illinois, I will visit my great grandmother Elizabeth Sunderlin Hause Beach and the other Beaches buried there. I will even have a picnic.

South Side Cemetery, Pontiac, IL

For now, I have several precious items that once belonged to George and Libbie. The first is a lovely silver serving spoon that was no doubt part of a set of silver divided among many descendants long ago. It has a J. Cook hallmark and is engraved “G. &. E. Beach.” I found the pattern once online and decided matching it would be cost-prohibitive, especially since I had already inherited my mother’s silver (yet another story for another day).

We also have George and Libbie’s family bible. (We actually have two such tomes—this one and the one belonging to George’s father Robert.) It was a gift to the newlyweds, and is inscribed “to George R. and Libbie Beach, For their Wedding Present, by Father and Mother, Dansville, August, 29^th 1873, [signed] Robert Beach and [Robert’s second wife] Lydia B. Beach.” The early death of George and Libbie’s daughter Ortha is listed, as is the death of Libbie in 1917. The page listing births is missing. 

George and Libbie Beach were literate American Baptists, not surprising given their background. They were both born in western New York during the religious upheaval that occurred there in the first half of the 19th century. George’s father Robert’s written autobiography shows he had married a member of the “Methodist Episcopal Church,” discovered religion and became a tea-toddler. He believed in higher education, and was a trustee of the Rogersville Union Seminary, an (apparently non-denominational) institution of higher learning which was well-respected during its time. This is where George matriculated after attending Common School. Both Robert (as trustee) and George (as student) appear in the 1859 school catalogue. The seminary taught practical things but also focused on the classics.

I found no record of higher education for Libbie, but she was clearly a literate Baptist. Her father Charles was a well-read man who traveled the entire globe in the 1990s and sent letters home which were published in a local paper in New York’s Finger Lakes region. He was an early financial supporter of the University of Rochester, New York, which was founded by Baptists in 1850. Both family bibles in our possession are worn from not just age but use. And within George and Libbie’s bible is a pamphlet of “Bible Lessons” from July 1889, with my grandmother Buena Vista’s name hand-written above the title. She would have been 11 years old at the time.

Alfred E. Peterson

Libbie and George’s daughter Buena Vista Beach (1878-1951) married Alfred Emanuel Peterson (1873-1938). My grandfather Alfred was an American Baptist minister who was born and raised on a farm in Minnesota. His parents were Swedish Baptists who left Sweden in 1857 to avoid religious persecution. Part of the Dakota War of 1962 took place on their Minnesota farm. (It seems every one of my dead relatives has an interesting story to tell….) In 1914, when Alfred contemplated marriage to Buena Vista, he was a 41 year-old widower whose calling was the First Baptist Church of Fargo, North Dakota, and whose daughter from his first marriage (my aunt Miriam Peterson) had been living with one of his sisters for more than two years. Alfred called on George and Libbie and asked for their 36 year-old daughter’s hand in marriage. A few days later he wrote a long and passionate letter on church stationery. His letter begins: “I could not trust myself to say what I wanted to say the other evening or endeavor to express how much I appreciate the manner in which you both received the request I made of you. I believe I understand better than most just how much I am asking, and I can only express our earnest wish and prayer that it shall not mean only loss to you but gain as well.” George and Libbie cared enough about this marriage that they kept the letter, and I now have a copy yellowed with age in my files.

Buena, Judson, George, & Sidney

Alfred and Buena Vista were married in Minneapolis 15 Dec 1914. My uncle Sidney Beach Peterson was born in 1916 and my father Judson Hause Peterson was born in 1918. Thus Libbie Sunderlin Hause and George Remington Beach lived on in their grandsons’ names. Just as their grandparents had lived on so many years earlier when at birth George was given the middle name of Remington in honor of his maternal grandmother, and Libbie was given her maternal grandmother’s name “Elizabeth Sunderlin.”

We also have a beautiful writing desk that Libbie must have used—it is engraved with her initials and came to my father when his Aunt Row died at the age of 97 (1886-1983). I remember Aunt Row well. She spent every family holiday with us, and always brought mint candies with her, as well as jokes she cut out of the Reader's Digest. I remember some of her stories (for another day), but wish I had asked her about her sister Buena Vista, who died a few months after my sister’s birth in 1951, two years before I was born. I could also have asked her about her parents George and Libbie, but of course I wasn’t interested at the time. In my father’s papers he said he regretted not asking questions of some of his relatives. I have my own regrets, and some day my daughter will probably have hers as well. It is a fact of life, and of death.

I believe family history is not for the faint of heart. It is immensely time-consuming, and if one is remotely obsessive-compulsive, beware! Every time I learn something about one of my dead relatives, it leads to more questions. I have written above what I know about George and Libbie. Here’s what I wonder about now….

… How did Libbie’s father Charles Hause come to marry Martha Barnard in Boston a few short months after the death of his first wife? Who was this second wife? For awhile I thought she simply disappeared after 1880. But I recently found her grave site. She died in 1892 and is buried in Northampton, Massachusetts with her parents. Did Martha Hause travel with her husband as he roamed the world, or did she stay behind. Why is she not mentioned in his obituary or other biographical writings?

… Why are George and Libbie and the girls in California in 1910? George’s brother (and business partner) died in Pontiac in 1910. Did that prompt the move? If so, why? Were they just “visiting”? Were they searching for a different climate because of Libbie's health?

… Libbie is buried in Pontiac, while George is buried in Minneapolis. Why? Did George’s second wife Effie make the decision about George’s burial place, and what did his children think? Why didn’t I ever ask about this when we visited all those graves? By the way, George’s brother John Beach and his wife Emma are both buried in Pontiac, as is Libbie and George’s daughter Mary Joanna, who died in 1969. Curious.

… How did the Baptist pastor living in Fargo (Alfred) meet the spinster living in Minneapolis (Buena Vista), and what did George and Libbie really think -- prompting the letter from Alfred....?

I hope to get to Pontiac soon, where I am sure to find some answers in newspapers viewable on microfilm. Of course, those answers will probably leave me with other questions…. For now I rejoice in what I DO know about my great grandparents George and Libbie Beach. This one's for you.

Find George and Libbie's Google Map here.

Find my family tree (searchable by name) here.

George and Libbie's marriage license (30 Aug 1873)