(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: Happy 70th Birthday, Breathless!

Mark was born on this day in 1941, at 11:45 AM at Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, Texas.  He weighed seven pounds, seven ounces.  At the time his father, Francis Edward Gresham, was 30 and working as a multilith operator for Studer's Photograph Studio.  His mother, Jewel Moore Gresham, was 26, and this was their first child.  They were living at 405 San Pedro at the time.

Mark's maternal grandfather, Tandy Clayton Moore, was born on August 22, 1878, and his maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Moore, was born on August 20, 1852.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Matrilineal Monday: Tandy Clayton Moore, born August 22, 1878

 Tandy Clayton Moore is Breathless' maternal grandfather.  He was born 133 years ago today, on August 22, 1878, in or near Salem, Lee County, Alabama, the oldest child of Thomas Jefferson Moore (1852-1904) and Angeline/Evangeline Elizabeth "Lizzie" Peach (1859–1924).  In 1880, the family was living in or near Auburn in Lee County, Alabama.

When Clayton, as he was known, was five, his parents, two younger brothers, grandfather and step-grandmother, four of five Moore uncles, and two of three Moore aunts, all moved to Texas, taking the train to Lewisville. Clayton helped with the family farm near Flower Mound, raising crops to help support his aunt Sue Moore, who was 11 years older and single.

Photographs of Clayton from late 1900 or early 1901 show that he was quite a handsome man.  Breathless' first cousin, Thomas Clayton Moore, says about their grandfather on page 49 in his unpublished manuscript Heroic Lives of Ordinary People, that

Sometime in the summer of 1898, when he was nineteen, he went to talk to the Bartonville postmaster, Wiley Thomas Jones, at the postmaster's home about a postal matter.  While engaged in conversation, he saw a pretty 16 year old woman getting wood from the woodpile for the cookstove.  He told this writer many years later that he decided then and there that that was the girl he wanted to marry.  He learned that her name was Nancy Flora Jones.

They were married, on August 7, 1901, "at the residence of Robert Keith, the officiating minister." according to the Denton County News, August 15, 1901, page 8, column 5.

Clayton and "Nannie" headed north to Oklahoma, eventually leasing 40 acres (for five cents an acre) near Indiahoma in Comanche County from a Comanche chief named Chebahtah.   It was here, in an eight-foot by ten-foot dugout, that their first child, Thomas Gurth, was born in 1902.  Besides farming cotton, Clayton also worked building fences and doing odd jobs for $10 a month for Quanah Parker (c1852-1911, the son of another famous Indian captive, Cynthia Ann Parker, c1827-1870).

About a year later, the family moved to Fort Worth.  Clayton worked for a carpenter, driving nails for a dollar a day, ten hours a day, six days a week. Daughter Velma was born near Lewisville in October 1903 (sadly, she died in 1910 of diptheria).  After Clayton's father died young of pneumonia in 1904, the family moved back to the Flower Mound homestead to help Clayton's two younger brothers work the family farm. Daughter Ivis was born there in 1905.

Late in 1906, Clayton found a farm 14 miles west of Fort Worth, and moved his family there.  Later he took a job in construction with the Swift and Company meat packer.  Daughter Ruby Clayton was born here in February, 1907.  When Clayton was laid off by Swift and Company two years later, he found a 20 acre farm to rent near Azle, and the family moved there in 1909.  Daughter Beulah Mable was born there in March 1910.

Clayton later rented a larger place, 80 acres near White Settlement, with a log cabin near Little Silver Creek.  Their last two daughters were born here, Audie Ruth in 1911, and Breathless' mother, Jewel, in October 1914.  The family later moved into the "big house" on this former plantation, which was surrounded by geraniums. Jewel later said that "whenever she smelled the fragrance of geraniums, she thought of this time." (page 88).

In the summer of 1918, Clayton's cotton crop was destroyed by boll weevils, so the family followed friends to Marlow, Stephens County, Oklahoma.  They bought a 120-acre farm in Bray, about ten miles west of Marlow.  This is where they lived the rest of their lives.  Son Gurth died of pneumonia in January 1930, and they helped their daughter-in-law by caring for his two sons at the farm in the late 1930s.

Tandy Clayton Moore died January 1, 1964, at the age of 85.  He is buried in the Marlow Cemetery.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Surname Saturday: MOORE: Thomas Jefferson Moore, born August 20, 1852

Breathless' maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Moore, was born on this day 159 years ago, in Salem, Russell County, Alabama.  He was the only son of Milton Jonathan Moore (1830-1912) and his first (of three) wives, Rutha Jane Lawson.

He married Angeline/Evangeline Elizabeth "Lizzie" Peach (1859–1924) on December 18, 1876, in Lee County, Alabama.  In 1880, they were living with their oldest son, Tandy Clayton Moore (1878-1964) near Auburn, Lee County, Alabama, where Thomas was a farmer.

In October 1883, Thomas and his family (a second child had been born), his father and stepmother, four of his five younger half-brothers and two of his three younger half-sisters, sold almost everything they owned and bought train tickets for Lewisville, Texas.

Thomas purchased 90 acres seven miles west of Lewisville (near today's Flower Mound) for $5 an acre, with a house, some outbuildings, and a well already on it. Six more children were born in Texas.  The family posed for a photograph outside their home sometime in late 1900 or early 1901.

Thomas Jefferson Moore died of pneumonia at the age of 51, on March 24, 1904, at home near Flower Mound in Denton County, Texas.  He is buried at the Shiloh Cemetery in Flower Mound.

[Some of the information in this profile came from Heroic Lives of Ordinary People, an unpublished family history by Thomas Clayton Moore, Breathless' first cousin.]

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Treasure Chest Thursday: Marriage of Jacob Pape & Elizabeth Gierse

 On this day, August 18, in 1846, 165 years ago, my paternal great-great-grandparents, Jacob/Jakob Pape and Elizabeth Gierse, were married in Boedefeld, Westphalia, Germany.  There is no date on this image (provided by my cousin Bill) but I'm guessing it was taken sometime in the 1860s.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Sentimental Sunday: More on architect Ewald Pape, 1894-1976

About nine months ago I did a post on Ewald Theodore Pape, my first cousin two times removed. Since then I've done some more research and been contacted by a closer relative (his grand-neice), who provided the picture of Ewald below.  I also learned that three apartment buildings in Portland, Oregon, that Ewald designed were placed on the National Register of Historic Places.  One of those buildings, the Thompson Court Apartments, was on the Irvington Home Tour in Portland, and I contacted the Irvington Community Association to fill in some of their missing information on Ewald and ask if they had any information I did not have.

Ewald Theodore Pape, 29 October 1927, in Portland, Oregon, probably at work.  Photo courtesy Mary Kay Schmidt.

On January 19, 2011, I heard back from Jim Heuer, an architectural historian who lives in Irvington and is a member of the Irvington Community Association's Historic Preservation Committee, as well as a member of the Historic Preservation League of Oregon and a board member for the Architectural Heritage Center.  He told me the following:

Thompson Court Apartments (1929), 2304-2314 NE 11th Ave., Portland, Oregon,  this  & another photo by Ian Poellet

"Most of the information we have about Ewald Pape is taken from a book entitled Architects of Oregon: A Biographical Dictionary of Architects Deceased - 19th and 20th Centuries, by Richard Ellison Ritz.  This book was privately published a number of years ago and is not widely available outside of Portland.  The entry on Ewald Pape is quoted below:

Pape, Ewald T.

Ewald T. Pape was not a registered architect but the high quality of the apartment houses he designed in Portland merit his inclusion in this reference work on Oregon architects.

Nothing is known about Pape’s date or place of birth or his education.  He is first listed in the Portland City Directory for 1923 as a draftsman.  In the 1925 city directory, he is listed as a designer of character homes with an office on Sandy Boulevard.  From 1926 to 1934, he had an office in the Couch Building, and from 1935 to 1941 he had his office in the Sherlock Building.  Directory listings describe him variously as Architect, Home Designer, Architectural Designer, and Building Contractor (in 1953 and 1954).  There are no more directory listings for Pape after 1954.

Between 1925 and 1933, Pape established business relationships with Portland developers William K. Johnson and Robert McFarland, designing apartment houses for each of them.  He began by designing four unit apartment buildings, but was soon designing quarter and half block apartment buildings.  His designs included the Sheffield Manor, Willister Courts, Burrell Courts, Burrell Heights Apartments, San Farlando, Del Mar and others.  For William K. Johnson, Pape designed Villa Marconi, Thompson Court, and others.

Pape’s apartment work was innovative, with major emphasis on livability and eliminating the stigma of apartment living by providing individuality and separate entrances for each unit.

No obituary has been found for Pape.

REFERENCES:  Portland City Directory; National Register of Historic Places nomination forms for the Thompson Court Apartments, San Farlando Apartments, and Burrell Heights Apartments prepared by Heritage Investment Corporation."

San Farlando Apartments (1929), 2903–2925 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland, Oregon, photo by Finetooth

Burrell Heights Apartments (1928), 1510-1542 SE Clay Street, Portland, Oregon, photo by Finetooth

Besides finding the three nomination forms linked to above in the National Register Information System (aka NPS Focus), I also found more information about Ewald on the Multiple Property Submittal (MPS) form for these three properties, entitled "Middle Class Apartments in East Portland." Here are some excerpts about Ewald from that document:

• His plan sheet signature block read "Designer of Character Homes."
• In 1923, [he was] residing at the Royal Palms Apartments at 262 Flanders in the North Burnside area and working independently as a draftsman.
• In the next year [1924], he married Alma and moved to the Housman Apartments (now Casa Linda) at 730 Hoyt in Nob Hill.
• Beginning in 1925, Pape established an independent office at 956 Sandy Boulevard and began to market himself as a designer of fine homes.
• The following year [1926], he moved his office to the Couch Building on 4th Avenue.
• [Around 1925,] Pape hired architect O. M. Akers to design a small family house for him in Eastmoreland at 1520 E. 36th Avenue (7528 SE 36th Avenue).

Also, during World War II, "Pape's commissions stopped. Registered architects were involved with federal projects related to the war effort. These included mass housing projects which kept most busy for the duration. Since Pape was not a registered architect, demand for design services evaporated with the reallocation of raw materials to the war effort. He instead took a job as an estimator for the Portland Door Company. After the war, he returned to home designs. He also attempted to capitalize on the housing boom by developing homes on speculation. In 1955, Pape disappeared from the City Directory. Given the substance of his work, he very likely retired and moved out of the area." (He, his wife, and his son all died in California).

ETA 3 July 2022:  A recent query led to me updating this post to include research (and links to those posts) from the eleven years since I first wrote it.

Military records for Ewald indicate that he served as a draftsman in the Army in Hawaii from December 1920 to July 1922.  That may be where he got some of his architectural training.

I found Ewald and his family in the 1955 Downey, California, city directory, which indicates he was working as a designer for the Anthony Brothers Pool Company, which also included Anthony Homes at that time.  He was retired by 1968 and died in Downey in 1976.

Also, to date I have positively identified 59 properties in the Portland, Oregon area (including Lake Oswego) that were definitely designed by Ewald, and another 16 attributed to him that I still need to verify.  I have mapped them and included links to my posts about the properties as I write about then.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Sentimental Sunday: Happy 35th Anniversary, Terrie and Mark!

On August 7, 1976, my cousin Terrie (who is my financial adviser today) got married in Des Plaines, Illinois. Besides my family of origin (and the bride's, whose father is my dad's brother), two of my dad's sisters and their families were there - so lots of aunts, uncles, cousins and a couple cousins-in-law pictured below:







©Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Wordless Wednesday: Happy Birthday, Brother Mark!

Me and my brother Mark, late 1960 or early 1961

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Sentimental Sunday - 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History: Nani's and Nana's

The prompt for Week 31 of 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History is Grandparents’ House.

Describe your grandparents’ house. Was it big or small? How long did they live there?

When I was a child in the 1960s, my maternal grandmother ("Nani") and step-grandfather, Wallace and Sara Wolfe Guokas Archibald, lived at 1118 Bay Oaks in Houston, Texas. This wasn't too far from my family's home in the early 60's at 7913 Cedel in Spring Branch. I don't remember a whole lot about the inside of the house. The outside was more memorable. My grandmother had a green thumb and the house was surrounded by trees and bushes and all kinds of plants. There was a small swingset in the the backyard (that shows up in a lot of home movies my step-grandfather took). The photo above of me in the tree (then) in front of their house was taken in 1966.

My paternal grandparents, Paul and Elizabeth Massmann Pape ("Nana"), lived at 2547 Hastings in Evanston, Illinois, which was at the corner of Central and across from Bent Park.  They were in the end-unit of a three-plex.  I only visited them there a couple of times, the last being around July 4, 1970.  Besides being a great location to watch the parade down Central, having a wonderful playground across the street wasn't bad either.  Once again I don't remember much about the inside of the house, other than it had a full basement, a novelty for one like me who grew up in Texas.  The photo above was taken in January 2000.

Both Wallace and Paul died in 1970, and my grandmothers moved not too long after.  Nana moved in with her daughter Rosemary, my Aunt "Moe" and Uncle "Das" (Ronald) Dietz, in nearby Glenview, Illinois, and eventually she moved with them to Largo, Florida, where she passed away in January 2000.  Nani's younger sister Edith also lost her husband Robert Brown in 1970, and for a while they shared a house on Beechnut (between Fondren and the Southwest Freeway), not far from our home at 8015 Sharpview, until Aunt Edith remarried in 1981.  At that point Nani moved to a condo at 6161 Reims (again not far from our home), where she lived until she passed away in November 1997.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

My Grandfather was an Enumerator

My grandfather, Charles Guokas Jr., 1930s

Lately I've been working with my mother, trying to compile all the information we have about her Guokas grandparents and determine what we're missing. I was double-checking my great-grandfather on the 1930 census in Houston, Texas. My great-grandmother had passed away in 1929, but my grandparents and their two children (my mother and her older brother) were sharing his home, along with my great uncle Roy Guokas, then aged 12.

On this census, I noticed that my grandfather, Charles Guokas Jr., then age 26, had listed his occupation as "enumerator" and his industry as "United States Government"! However, I had no idea which district(s) he enumerated. It wasn't the one he lived in.

So, I decided to check the first and last pages of the census for every enumeration district in Houston. If the last page had a different enumerator from the first, I'd scroll back a couple pages. Many last pages were done by I. Marshall Pittman, who I guess was a census supervisor. If the district was especially large, I would check middle pages as well.

In 1930, there were 160 enumeration districts, so this took a while! I finally found my grandfather as the enumerator for District 77:

This area is just south of downtown Houston, and its boundaries were as follows:
(N) MCGOWEN; (E) SCOTT; (S) DREW, LIVE OAK, TUAM, DOWLING, ELGIN; (W) HUTCHINS.

View Borders of Houston ED 77, 1930 in a larger map

The district filled 73 pages of census sheets. He worked on it from April 2 through April 15. I have to wonder how much money he made. I. Marshall Pittman also made corrections or additions on another page for this district as well.

I wondered how my grandfather got this job. I found a page on the National Archives website that explained the process.  All applicants had to take a test, which is pictured on the Census Bureau website, as well as below (click on it to enlarge it and read the details).  The census supervisors made their appointments from a list of those who passed the test in their areas.

My mother tells me that this census district was not too far from their home in 1930, and that her father would have easily been able to take a streetcar to the location to work.  This may have been his first foray into government and politics (for I imagine there was SOME politics involved in who got the enumerator jobs).  I was surprised to learn from my mother that my grandfather was a delegate from Texas to the 1932 Democratic party convention in Chicago that nominated Franklin Delano Roosevelt for president and Speaker of the House John Nance Garner of Texas for vice-president

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History: Water

The prompt for Week 29 of 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History is Water.

Do you have any memories of the sea or another body of water? Did you live there or just visit? What did you do there?

Flagship Hotel, Galveston, Texas, c. 1965-1972.  Photo by Carl Schuh for a Galveston News Co. postcard

Annette Taylor & me, Audie's beach party, August 1973

Growing up in Houston, Galveston was an easy day trip away. I can remember going there around 1965 with my parents and siblings, and seeing the newly-built Flagship Hotel, but I didn't get to stay at the hotel until March 1972 with my Girl Scout troop. The Flagship has an interesting history. Built on the site of Galveston's WWII era Pleasure Pier amusement park that was destroyed in Hurricane Carla in 1961, it too was destroyed by a hurricane (Ike in 2008) and was demolished earlier this year to make way for a new amusement park on the pier.

The family of my high school friend Audrey had a beach house at Jamaica Beach on the west end of Galveston Island. The highlight of the summer was her annual beach party.

Brian, Mary, and Mark in the Medina River, August 1972

Besides the Frio and Comal, other Texas Hill Country spring-fed rivers were a part of my life growing up.  My parents bought five acres on the Medina River, just outside of the town of the same name, but only owned it long enough for me to enjoy a camping trip with Dad and my siblings in August 1972.  I worked in San Antonio in the summer of 1979, and spent a lot of time at the River Walk - still one of my favorite places.  Other rivers, such as the Guadalupe near Hunt and Ingram, the Pedernales, and the Sabinal have been a part of my life for many years.

Below left: San Antonio River Walk.  Below right: Me on a Guadalupe River crossing near Camp Rio Vista, January 9, 1980

I was fortunate enough to live in Corpus Christi, Texas, for five years in my early life (before I turned 30!). My workplace was just blocks off the waterfront, but I lived further inland. It will always be a beautiful place to me, simply because that is where I met Mark. But there are also lovely memories of sunrises over Malaquite Beach on Padre Island (below left), and sunsets and other fun times on Mark's sailboat (below right).

©Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.