Shakin' the Family Tree

Abraham Hamilton Parrish, 1856-1915

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 03:21:16 GMT

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The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, although the two cannot be separated. ~Plato
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That 19 year old staring at the camera was one of my cousins.

We are only distantly related, Ham and I.

First cousins, five times removed.

He was the son of Abraham Lincoln Parrish, Jr. and Susanna Elizabeth Snelling. Born in 1856 in Knox County, MO, Abraham Hamilton Parrish was known to family and friends as Ham.

He had one sister, and seven half siblings from his father's marriage to Anna Evans.

He would marry in 1887, and have two sons.

He died in 1915 - alone, at State Hospital Number 2 in St. Joseph, Buchanan County, MO.

He was buried in the cemetery there - a graveyard for patients who either had no family, or no family members willing to claim their bodies.

That cemetery is all but forgotten now, and a state prison occupies the land where the State Hospital was.

Perhaps Ham's mental state had deteriorated due to his uncontrolled epilepsy by the time he was admitted to State Hospital Number 2 on 19 Dec 1899.

His wife, Margaret Gragg, had divorced him and remarried on 11 Dec 1898.

I expect it wasn't a very merry Christmas for Ham that year.

A piece of his medical record survives, from a five year period of time from 1903 through 1908.

It was clear his epilepsy was still uncontrolled.

Mar 16 1903 Quiet except when disturbed by seizures. Doing well physically. Very dull mentally.
July 22 - about the same.
May 15 1905 - staff (?) reports no improvement mentally
June 10 - general health very good. eating and sleeping well.
Jany 6 1906 - general health good. mentally no improvement.
Feb 6 - Remains about the same. eating and sleeping well, and causes no trouble.
Mar 9 - no change
Apr 12 - no change
May 17 - physical condition good. Has frequent convulsions and at times is badly confused
Aug 5 - I can see no improvement in his condition. He eats and sleeps well.
Sept 25 - no change
Oct 23 - no change
Jany 9 1907 - general health good. No improvement mentally.
April 25 - very little change. has numerous convulsions at times is badly confused.
Aug 7 - [illegible] a bite to the second finger of the right hand from another patient
Sept 15 - had to amputate finger today
Oct 20 - wound has healed. and he is in his general condition physically and mentally

Ham died on 25 Aug 1915, at the age of 59. That's just 6 years older than I am now.

His death certificate lists his cause of death as status epilepticus, which is a very grand way of describing a brain that just won't turn off the juice, and that stays in a state of persistent seizure. It is an acute, prolonged epileptic crisis.

I had a young client once with uncontrolled epilepsy. Shortly before her death, I visited her and her mother in her hospital room, where her doctors had her in a light coma. I could still observe seizure activity.

She died too, shortly after I went to see her.

I can't go visit Ham's grave in real life.

But I can leave a remembrance on his memorial at Find a Grave.

And I'll meet him on the other side.

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Sympathy Saturday: I was on a roll...

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 14:10:10 GMT

I found another leg of my Parrish family last night.

My Parrish family made its way from Virginia to Kentucky, where some of them hunkered down for several generations.

But many more continued to move - on to Indiana and then to Missouri, where my g-g-grandfather, Fred Chapin, met and married Eada Belle Parrish in Vernon County on Christmas Eve in 1885.

Eada's second cousin, William Henry Parrish, was six years older than she was.

His family had lived in Knox County since at least the early 1850s. William was born in Knox County on 2 Mar 1853.

As far as I can tell, William and his wife, Cordelia Anna Davis, lived and worked in Knox County all their lives, raising five children together.

William and Cordelia's life together ended on 24 Jun 1924, when a tornado ripped through Knox County. Their death certificates say they died of the injuries they suffered in a cyclone. Their gravestone also notes the manner of their deaths.

I don't know if Eada got word of the tornado, or of her cousin's death. I can't find news coverage of the event, but for a while last night, I sat very thoughtfully at my computer, trying to imagine what it must have been like for my 71 year old cousin and his 67 year old wife as a funnel cloud exploded their world, and took them into the next one.

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Sympathy Saturday: Eada B Parrish and Fred Chapin

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:45:20 GMT

These are the obituaries for my great-great grandparents, Eada Belle Parrish (1859-1944) and Fred Chapin (1858-1938).

Fred Chapin

Fred Chapin, 80, of 913 North Valmar street, died at a Little Rock hospital at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. He is survived by his wife, a daughter, Mrs. V C Balding of Little Rock; a sister, Mrs. Essie Finn of Altoona, Pa.; seven grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. Funeral services will be held at the P H Ruebel & Co. chapel at 4:30 p.m. Friday in the charge of the Rev. Hay Watson Smith. Burial will be in Oakland cemetery. Pallbearers will be Joe D Williams, E V Balding, R Ellington Balding, and Marvin Balding.
Published on Friday, 30 Dec 1938, in the Arkansas Gazette

Mrs. Eada B Chapin
Octogenarian Dies.
Mrs. Eada B Chapin, aged 85, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. V C Balding of 217 Denison street, at 7:30 a.m. Saturday. She had been a resident of Little Rock for 50 years. Also surviving are seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Funeral services will be held at the Ruebel Funeral Home at 10 a.m. Monday by the Rev. Marion A Boggs. Burial will be in Oakland cemetery. Pallbearers will be W L Terry, L C Gring, J S Holtzman, W M Brandon, J D Williams and Lt. Eugene Balding.
Published on Sunday, 3 Dec 1944, in the Arkansas Gazette

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Madness Monday: William Tuttle Parrish

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:30:55 GMT

For the longest time, I thought perhaps William Tuttle Parrish was a brother to my great-great grandmother, Eada Belle Parrish, but I could not connect the dots.

According to the 1900 census of Lake, Vernon Co., MO, William T Parrish was born in June 1850 in Kentucky. I also found him in the 1880 census, just five years or so after he married Sarah Hamlet Bridgewater on New Year's Eve in 1874 in Vernon County.

But I couldn't go back any farther with him, and certainly did not find him in the home of Eada's parents, Benjamin Abraham Yeager Parrish and Minerva Ann Hamilton, both of whom were also born in Kentucky, as were Abraham's parents.

When I received an email contact from a Parrish researcher, who was descended from the father of Sarah Hamlet Bridgewater, I made another stab at trying to identify the parents of William T Parrish, and also to find his date of death, which I have placed between 1900 and 1910 in Vernon Co., MO.

I couldn't find a death record on him at the Missouri SOS State Archive, but I did find out what his middle name was.

From his the death certificate of his daughter, Cinderella H E Parrish Walker, who died on 1 Jul 1930 in Vernon County.

Tuttle. He was William Tuttle Parrish.

And that led me to a set of possible parents - William Allen Parrish (1819-1883, Clark Co., KY) and Katherine Tuttle (1819-1908, Clark Co., KY).

They had an infant son, William, in the 1850 census, and also in their home in the 1860 and 1870 censuses. Their William was not in their home in 1880.

So now, it's on to contact some of the William Allen Parrish family researchers to see if we may have a match.

None of them have information about William Parrish after he left his parental home.

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Those Places Thursday: Lakeland Asylum, Jefferson Co., KY

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:52:52 GMT

also known as Central Kentucky Asylum for the Insane

It hasn't been uncommon for me to find some of my kinfolk committed to asylums of one kind or another.

But in the case of one of my many times removed Parrish cousins, I wonder why.

Sudie Parrish Vittitow was three months shy of her 74th birthday when she died at Lakeland Asylum on 25 Feb 1936.

Sad, but telling that the place where she had lived for three years thought she was Sadie instead of Sudie.

A simple Google search tells some horror stories about the care and treatment at the place where Sudie lived for 3 years, 3 months and 13 days after her commitment - like how in the 1930s, cold showers, insulin injections, lobotomies and shock therapy were used to "cure" the patients, many of whom were just old and had dementia.

Some people say the place is haunted.

Sudie was the daughter of William Foster Parrish and Elizabeth Holbert. She was born on 15 May 1862 in Nelson County, KY, as were most of her ten siblings. She had a twin sister named Sallie.

She married twice, first to Samuel Vittitow, from whom she was divorced, and then to his cousin, Anthony, who died in 1929.

Altogether, Sudie had 8 children, including sons Clarence and Charlie, who had lived in their parents' home well into their adult years - and up to and including the 1930 census, when they were living with their newly widowed mother as men in their 30s.

So why was Sudie committed to an asylum?

I guess I'll have to wait and ask her on the other side...

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