Hurricane Rita, five years later

 Sulphur, Louisiana, Oct. 2005, post-Hurricane Rita. (The tree fell in front of the house, thankfully, not on it.)

As a child, the solemn tones people imparted when speaking the names Audrey, Betsy, Camille no doubt formed my sense of the power of hurricanes at a very early age.  I don't remember how old I was when I learned that I should go into the hall closet and shut the door if a tornado was approaching, or into the hall at the very least, shutting all (wooden) doors behind me so as to be away from all windows.  It just seems like something I always knew, like knowing where to duck at this moment if the earth beneath my feet begins to tremble out here on the West Coast.

No doubt the collective community memory, if not the actual experience, of these storms, saved many lives when people evacuated Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas before Hurricane Rita in 2005.  And if stories of dead cows found 20 miles inland where they were pushed by Hurricane Audrey's 1957 storm surge wasn't enough to send residents packing, the still-fresh news footage of Katrina's aftermath to the east should have converted even nonbelievers.

Hurricane Rita hit the Louisiana/Texas border five years ago today.  I was in California worrying about my family back home in Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas.  I don't remember ever actually evacuating ahead of a hurricane in the 25 or so years I lived in Louisiana, only battening down the hatches and stocking up on canned goods and such.  But Mom & Dad and other relatives actually got out of town for this storm, even though they live about 40 miles from the Gulf Coast.

Staying away from home for almost 2 weeks was difficult (Calcasieu Parish, my family's home, was officially "closed" due to the lack of electricity in most areas, passable roads and potable water in some.  Cell phones, message boards, and e-mail relayed reports on local damage from those who stayed or sneaked in), though it probably paled to cleaning out the putrid freezers and fridges, everyone's least favorite chore, when they returned. 

My parents were lucky that only a few trees were downed (and fell away from the house instead of on it) and roof shingles damaged.  Many people came home to worse.  Some still have repairs left undone, and others cannot afford to return to the coastal areas due to stringent new building codes and expensive insurance premiums.

Some call this the "forgotten" hurricane, because news coverage of it was much less than for Katrina.  I suspect, however, that Rita and Ike will be the "Audrey" in the minds of my nieces & nephew and their children in the way that Audrey was the cautionary tale for my generation, told by those old enough and lucky enough to have lived through it.

Copyright 2010 by Liz Hall Morgan, all rights reserved.

Madness Monday: My mystery grandpa, part two, or "Eating an elephant."

Note: This post continues my "Madness Monday" post from last week about my "mystery grandpa," Robert Bunyan Hall.

Robert Bunyan Hall and Jerome Guidry, Sabine or Neches River, Texas, abt 1918.  Scan of original photo owned by the Hall family, La., cropped and edited for fading.

Robert listed “George C. Hall and Georgia Burnaman" [Could it be Burnham? Burnam? It's hard to read] as his parents on the application for a marriage license to my grandmother, Elia Legere, in 1918. This is the only George and Georgia Hall with a son named Robert of approximately correct age in the 1880 U.S. Census I’ve found--so far:

1880 U.S. Census, Georgia—Baker Co., ED 2, p. 36, lines 37-39

Hall, George, W, M, 35, farmer, b. GA, father b. SC, mother b. GA

------ Georgia Ann, W, F, 30, wife, keeping house, b. SC? [strike-through and correction], parents b. SC

------ Robert, W, M, 3, son, b. GA, father b. GA, mother b. SC

Following this family in the census, Robert’s POSSIBLE (unproven) parents would be:

George C. HALL. Born in Feb 1843 in GA. George C. died prob. in Quitman, Brooks, GA after 1910.

Residences:

• 1850, Lee Co., GA
• 1860-1880+, Newton area, Baker Co., GA
• 1900, Cairo, Thomas [now Grady Co.], GA
• 1910, Quitman, Brooks, GA

Occupation: Farmer [1864-1880+]; woods rider [probably turpentine industry], 1900; church sexton, 1910.  Civil War veteran [?? listed as disabled on the GA militia list of 1864, but can't find him in pension indexes]

Bef 1868 George C. married Georgia [C? Ann? BURNAMAN?], who was b. May 1850 in SC. Georgia prob. died in Quitman, Brooks, GA after 1910, possibly in 1928 [I have a death record for a possible Georgia who died in a poor house, and who had no relatives listed].

They had the following children:

    2    i.    William (b. c.1867 [in 1870 census] - d. bef 1880 census?)

    3    ii.    Robert (b. c. 1877, shows up with parents only in 1880 census)

George/Georgia HALL census sources [some ages/places vary.  Still, I think it is the same couple throughout]:

• 1870 GA—Baker Co., Newton p.o., p. 68, line 6
• 1880 GA—Baker Co., ED 2, p. 36, line 37
• 1900 GA--Thomas Co., Cairo [now part of Grady Co.], ED 89, Sheet 5A, line 3
• 1910 GA--Brooks Co., Quitman, ED 16, Sheet 2A, line 47.  [A Tom Hall, listed as black, is living next to them.  Who is this?]

As far as George’s parents, he is included in the 1850 Census in Lee Co., GA, in the household of Lucinda [HALL] Millican [with his probable sister, Amanda Hall] and in the 1860 Census in Baker Co., GA in the household of H.H. Hall.  The book “History of Baker Co.” lists Lucy & Henry Holcomb Hall as siblings. George is not listed in the book.  I think he may be a nephew or cousin of these Halls, but have no proof yet.  I've looked at microfilm of Baker Co. estate records and haven't found anything.

 Elia and Robert Hall, Oct. 1946, Sulphur, La.  Grandpa, I think, is looking smugly at me from this photo, chomping on his cigar and thinking, "You'll never find me!"  Just you wait, Grandpa, just you wait!

Interestingly, my parents visited Newton, GA, on vacation once and someone told Dad he looked like the Halls who owned a local grocery.  Why they didn't run right over there and question them immediately, I don't know!  But they didn't, and struck out in local records.

George and Georgia do not seem to have had property.  Perhaps there are poor house records.  

And our DNA is loosely grouped with other Halls whose ancestors were mostly from Virginia.  Should I start over there?  There are no George & Georgias there in 1880, though maybe one of them is there and widowed or remarried with a son Robert age 2 or 3.

As far as Robert, I've scoured city directories, but need to scour more.  There are few Robert B. Halls, but many Robert Halls to rule out, perhaps by following them in census records.  With many Southern states and counties he could have married in (see last week's post for his previous wives Carrie or Corrie Williams and Jessie), I'm not sure where to start again.  I've already chased down and ruled out a couple of other possible wives.  I think I've ruled out the only real Spanish-American War record lead I had.  Sigh.

I need to pull back, examine what I've already done, re-focus, and make a to-do list.  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

If you've heard of any of these families or have research ideas for me, leave a comment or drop me a line at hallroots (at) sbcglobal (dot) net.

Copyright 2010 by Liz Hall Morgan

Tombstone Tuesday: My paternal grandparents

Note: "Tombstone Tuesday" is a theme used by many genealogy bloggers; you can see other tombstone posts at GeneaBloggers.

Robert Bunyan Hall and Elia Légère Hall are my paternal grandparents. They are buried in Roselawn Cemetery in Sulphur, Louisiana, which is in Calcasieu Parish (county).



Elia was the daughter of Constant Legere (Légère, in some records as Leger) and his fourth wife, Marie Octavie "Tavie" McBride. She was born in Ossun, a small community near Scott, Louisiana, in Lafayette Parish. Grandma Elia's family is the source for the rich Cajun, Acadian and French-Canadian heritage I so enjoy exploring.



Robert was born, he always said, near Richmond, Virginia. His parents were George and Georgia Hall, and Georgia's maiden name was Burnaman or a similar variant [it's hard to read], according to Robert & Elia's Lafayette Parish, LA, marriage license application of 1918. Grandpa Robert is the "mystery man" of my family tree, and I'll definitely be posting about him more in the future, as I'm still trying to find and prove his parentage. [UPDATE: See my posts about my "mystery grandpa" here.]

Robert was a brick mason and contractor, and he and Elia raised seven children in Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana, some of whom are still living. They moved to Sulphur, Louisiana, in the early 1930s and lived there until their deaths.



Elia & Robert Hall, Oct. 1946, Sulphur, LA. Cropped from larger photo taken by a family member & digitally edited a bit for clarity by me. [If you're wondering, Grandpa apparently has a cigar in his mouth.]

You can read more about my Irish Protestant grandfather and Cajun Catholic grandmother and their relationship in a previous blog post here.

Top two photos and text copyright 2010 by Liz Hall Morgan; bottom photo courtesy of the Hall family.