
THE HOLLINGSWORTH REGISTER	VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2.

-21- A GENEALOGICAL ODYSSY
by HARRY HOLLINGSWORTH, C.G.


Hollingsworth Register has suffered in 1978...suffered from the genealogical journey of your editor. Before I left Los Angeles, June 23rd, I had not yet finished the composition of either the March or the June issues. But there was nothing left to do. Writing the magazine articles - like this one - and compiling the "lists" type of series, takes time, and it would have taken longer for me to write one issue and do it interestingly (we hope!) and right, than it would take to travel round the U.S.A. for six weeks. Well, at first, the trip was to take only three weeks, but lengthened gradually into six! Via Greyhound Bus, I left California on the 23rd, and arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, the next morning, and was greeted by a temperature of 117 degrees. Onward, I stopped overnight in Albuquerque that night, and got a motel. (I, for one, cannot sleep aboard any moving vehicle, at least, not long enough to feel refreshed.) Next day on through Amarillo, Texas, and into Oklahoma, through the cities of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, then northward through the southeastern tip of Kansas, and into the old city of Joplin, in Missouri, as the sun rose on another day. The trip across southern Missouri, ultimately to land in Saint Louis, was like traveling across the 19th century, except for the vehicular traffic. The myriad of old farm houses, big old barns, even small cemeteries scattered along the road, the cattle and hogs, made it seem as though I had gotten into a "time warp" and was back when Great-Granddad was living, a hundred years ago. The beautiful rolling country, crowded with groves of big trees rising against the azure sky of early morning, gave the final touch to this portrait of history. If Joplin looked out of the past, Carthage, in Jasper County, Missouri, was even more quaint and antique. A clean, neat little lady in her seventies got on in Carthage. She looked like one of my ancestors. It was beginning to get to me. But the stop in Saint Louis dispelled all the nostalgia. That bustling giant on the Mississippi has too many "new" things to fit the picture - the great stainless steel Jefferson Memorial Arch, for one. It was my first time, at nearly 47 years of age, to see anything east of Cheyenne. I finally saw the mighty River in person. Some research was undertaken in Saint Louis. They have a very fine genealogical collection in the public library. I also stopped at the County Courthouse to copy some marriages of more recent date than those published within the past few years by the St. Louis Genealogical Society. The next morning - June 27 - I boarded another Greyhound and crossed the Mississippi into East Saint Louis, Illinois, and travelled across Illinois in only a few hours passing a host of lovely farms, on into Indiana. We stopped momentarily at Terre Haute, the seat of Vigo County, where I took a picture of the historic courthouse, and realized

Continued on Page 22 \| Return to 14-2 TOC \| Return to Main Index

Hollingsworth Register has suffered in 1978...suffered from the genealogical journey of your editor. Before I left Los Angeles, June 23rd, I had not yet finished the composition of either the March or the June issues. But there was nothing left to do. Writing the magazine articles - like this one - and compiling the "lists" type of series, takes time, and it would have taken longer for me to write one issue and do it interestingly (we hope!) and right, than it would take to travel round the U.S.A. for six weeks. Well, at first, the trip was to take only three weeks, but lengthened gradually into six!

Via Greyhound Bus, I left California on the 23rd, and arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, the next morning, and was greeted by a temperature of 117 degrees. Onward, I stopped overnight in Albuquerque that night, and got a motel. (I, for one, cannot sleep aboard any moving vehicle, at least, not long enough to feel refreshed.) Next day on through Amarillo, Texas, and into Oklahoma, through the cities of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, then northward through the southeastern tip of Kansas, and into the old city of Joplin, in Missouri, as the sun rose on another day. The trip across southern Missouri, ultimately to land in Saint Louis, was like traveling across the 19th century, except for the vehicular traffic. The myriad of old farm houses, big old barns, even small cemeteries scattered along the road, the cattle and hogs, made it seem as though I had gotten into a "time warp" and was back when Great-Granddad was living, a hundred years ago. The beautiful rolling country, crowded with groves of big trees rising against the azure sky of early morning, gave the final touch to this portrait of history.

If Joplin looked out of the past, Carthage, in Jasper County, Missouri, was even more quaint and antique. A clean, neat little lady in her seventies got on in Carthage. She looked like one of my ancestors. It was beginning to get to me. But the stop in Saint Louis dispelled all the nostalgia. That bustling giant on the Mississippi has too many "new" things to fit the picture - the great stainless steel Jefferson Memorial Arch, for one. It was my first time, at nearly 47 years of age, to see anything east of Cheyenne. I finally saw the mighty River in person.

Some research was undertaken in Saint Louis. They have a very fine genealogical collection in the public library. I also stopped at the County Courthouse to copy some marriages of more recent date than those published within the past few years by the St. Louis Genealogical Society.

The next morning - June 27 - I boarded another Greyhound and crossed the Mississippi into East Saint Louis, Illinois, and travelled across Illinois in only a few hours passing a host of lovely farms, on into Indiana. We stopped momentarily at Terre Haute, the seat of Vigo County, where I took a picture of the historic courthouse, and realized

Continued on Page 22 | Return to 14-2 TOC | Return to Main Index

THE HOLLINGSWORTH REGISTER

VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2.