Sunday's Obituary - Bertie Burr Dawes

NEWARK, O., Feb. 8 - Mrs. Beman Gates Dawes, widow of the founder of the Pure Oil Co., died today in her home at the Dawes Arboretum six miles south of here. She was 86. She was a sister-in-law of Charles G. Dawes, vice president under Calvin Coolidge.

Mrs. Dawes devoted most of her later years to developing the 400-acre arboretum, which she and her husband founded "for the pleasure of the public and the education of youth."

A native of Lincoln, Neb., she was a friend of William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic presidential nominee, in her youth. Bryan's first law desk was in Mrs. Dawes' father's office.

When Mrs. Dawes was 19 she received the U.S. Treasury Life Saving Medal, one of the highest civilian awards for heroism. She had saved two girls caught in the Blue River near Crete, Neb.

She was one of four women who have received the medal.

Her husband was a U.S. congressman from Marietta in 1896.

Mrs. Dawes is survived by four of her five children, Beman Gates Dawes Jr., of Cincinnati, Carlos Burr Dawes of Columbus, E. Cutler Dawes of Newark, and Henry Dawes of Hartford, Conn.; 14 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren.

Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, February 9, 1958

The back story

Bertie Burr Dawes isn't exactly one of those relatives I would have gone looking for. We're really not even related at all. Through the magic behind the scenes at Ancestry.com, I see that she is the aunt of the wife of the husband of my first cousin, twice removed. She doesn't even qualify as shirt-tail kin. But I found her story and her family interesting.

Recently, I received a message from another Ancestry user who noticed we shared some of the same family members in Nebraska. My correspondent is new to genealogy and not sure of the direction to proceed. I said I would dig around a bit to see what I could come up with on her line.

Digging in to that family got me hooked. I will admit that Focus is not one of my best research qualities. That journalism blood continues to flow through my veins and I still tend to go after a good story line rather than remain focused on my direct lineage.

My research on Saturday afternoon took me in some fascinating directions that I never would have imagined. I was looking into the Burr family - barely related at all. One of the Burr women was the second wife of the man who had been married to one of my kin (he was a widower after his first wife committed suicide). I'd already gathered that these people traveled in the well-to-do social circles of Lincoln, Nebraska in the 1920s and before. A plethora of society page articles from newspapers describe their galas, parties, weddings and overseas travel.

I already had Bertie's father in my Ancestry tree: Carlos Calvin Burr. I did some searching on him and it didn't take long for me to learn that he had been the 12th Mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska between 1885 - 1887. Then I discovered that the man he beat in the election was John Fitzgerald, the brother-in-law of my great grandfather, Daniel Kelly. Only a few hundred votes separated the two candidates.

I discovered marriage and cemetery records on various members of the family by using the wonderful database of the Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society. Then I discovered many of the family members are buried at Wyuka Cemetery here in Lincoln. Shouldn't every cemetery have a searchable database of all interments? I added some memorials to FindAGrave when I found confirmation of the burial locations. My next outing to Wyuka will include photographing at least a dozen tombstones.

V.P. under Silent Cal

I continued reading various news articles and information I found on the web about Bertie Burr. She married a man named Beman G. Dawes. The Dawes name has historical significance in Nebraska. Beman Dawes' brother was Charles G. Dawes who practiced law here in Lincoln. The Dawes Plan for World War I won him the Nobel Peace Prize and he served as our nation's 30th vice president under Calvin Coolidge. Bertie's husband, Beman, served two terms in Congress and became head of a large oil company. Always looking ofr a political connection, I discovered from Ancestry that the former vice president is the brother-in-law of the aunt of the wife of the husband of my first cousin 2x removed. In other words, not really related!


Back to Nature

Bertie Dawes
Tree Dedication
June 1929

Perhaps the most interesting discovery in this family saga is that Bertie and Beman Dawes founded the Dawes Arboretum near Newark, Ohio in 1929. Today, it covers more than 1,800 acres and has more than 15,000 living plants. It is open every day of the year except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is . . . Free. One of the articles I discovered indicated that the couple is buried in a private mausoleum on the grounds.


I know that I certainly enjoyed learning more about Bertie Burr and her family - and learning some more about Nebraska and national political history in the process.


If my travels ever take me to Ohio again, I know that I'm going to want to spend some time at this beautiful oasis created by Bertie and Beman Dawes.


If any of my blog readers have visited the Dawes Arboretum, please share your comments below. I'd love to read about your impressions of what seems to be a beautiful area.

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History - Week 1: New Year's Day

Week 1 Challenge: New Year's. Did your family have any New Year’s traditions? How was the New Year celebrated during your childhood? Have you kept these traditions in the present day?

I remember that for several years when I was a kid living at home, my parents and I spent New Year's Eve with their friends. If the friends had children, I would spend time with them. That was always a little weird, trying to create a friendship based on seeing someone once a year. But it provided some variety and I didn't mind it. Of course, I always would have preferred to have hung out with the adults; I was always much more interested in their conversations about politics and world events.

New Year's Eve would never be at the same family's home. We would go someplace different each year, or have the families to our house. The only real memory I have is of watching The Tonight Show. No, not the one with Jay Leno; not even the one with Johnny Carson. Back then, it was Jack Paar and his announcer, Hugh Downs. I never quite figured out why they were celebrating the New Year in New York at 11 p.m. and then when midnight rolled around, nothing happened. Apparently, I had not yet learned about different time zones around the world.

During my mid-teens to college years, the New Year's holiday activities usually revolved around watching the Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at some bowl game. That's back in the day when there were only four or five big bowl games and it really meant something to be invited to one: Rose, Sugar, Cotton, Orange. That was also back in the day when Nebraska had a really good football team.

I was attending the University of Nebraska when the Huskers won back to back national championships in 1971 and 1972. Both championships were played out in the Orange Bowl, which was played on New Year's night. Once the televised games were over, my friends and I piled in a friend's car and "cruised O" Street with a few thousand other excited fans. It was total chaos, but good clean fun. I remember a police officer working traffic and he was pointing his finger shouting, "We're Number 1" right along with everyone else.

On January 14, 1971, President Nixon came to town to recognize the team for its championship season. I was never a Nixon fan (to say the least), and this was a year and a half before the break-in at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. that led to his downfall. I was one of just three or four journalism students selected to receive press credentials for the event that attracted about 8,000 people to the Coliseum on the University campus. I may still have my press pass somewhere, but maybe not. As members of the working press, we had a special door to enter and were patted down by the Secret Service. The agent also took every piece of camera equipment out of my bag and carefully inspected the lenses before I was allowed to enter the arena. I took a spot next to the camera crew from ABC. One of the ABC cameramen was pointing out the undercover Secret Service guys in the crowd, mingling with the campus radicals, with long hair, headbands and looking like someone out of the cast of Hair. Whether or not they were really Secret Service or if he was just feeding me a line, I'll never know.

But I'm veering off topic from New Year's traditions - even though it was the football victory of New Year's Day that caused me to wind up in the Presidential press pool two weeks later.

I'm not much for crowds or parties, and I'm even less enchanted with the idea of going out in sub-zero weather with a bunch of drivers who have had too much to drink. As an adult, it's been quiet, with New Year's Eve spent with Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve - every year since 1972. Sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. But one thing has remained constant since my childhood - I've always seen the New Year as a fresh start, a new beginning and knowing that we're at least halfway through the cold winter months.

About 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy: Amy Coffin of We Tree Genealogy has created a third year of blogging prompts for genealogy bloggers. The theme for 2011 is 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History. These are shared on the Geneabloggers.com web site, hosted by Thomas MacEntee.


Read all articles in this series.

Surname Saturday - Landon

I have to go back to my great grandmother for my connection to the Landon family. She was known in our family as Emma Harriet Landon Bellinger, wife of John William Bellinger. Other sources have shown her name as Harriet Emma. Either way, she is the starting point of my Landon roots.

Emma Harriet Landon Bellinger
1862 - 1915


Wife of John William Bellinger


Emma was born in Boone county, Illinois, one of ten children born to Daniel Landon and his wife, Anne Jane McVoy.


It is through the Landon family that my roots go back to Francis Cooke and Stephen Hopkins, passengers on the Mayflower.


There is very little that I know about Emma. She came to Cass county, Nebraska with her parents at a young age. At 17, she married John William Bellinger. Census records show them moving between Lincoln, Nebraska and Greenwood, Nebraska. They also lived in Fremont, Nebraska for a short time.


Emma and John had three children: Clifford Bellinger, Sina Bellinger (my grandmother) and Harry Bellinger. She died at age 53.


What I do know of Emma is in the pages of the scrapbook she started and that was continued by her daughter, Sina, after Emma's death. The scrapbook was an old catalog of supplies used to build houses. The scrapbook was full of articles she had clipped out of newspapers and pasted onto the catalog pages. The articles chronicled the lives and deaths of many of the Landon and Bellinger family and friends. This scrapbook gave me my first real taste of reading newspaper articles about my ancestors. Sources of the articles were never cited, but the date the article appeared in the newspaper was nearly always written down. She also saved poems and essays that appeared in the newspapers of her day.


It is through this Landon line that our family is related to former Kansas governor and presidential candidate, Alf Landon. Our common ancestors are Daniel Landon and Dorothy Holdrege. Our Landon family was detailed quite thoroughly by Joy Deal Lehmann in her Landon Family History (1988).

Our Landons came from England. Some sources suggest that the name was shortened from Langdon. In 1840, the highest concentration of Landons in the United States was in New York and Ohio. The predominant occupation of Landons was farming, followed by laborers.

As a youngster, I thought that I might have been related to actor Michael Landon, who was known for portraying Little Joe Cartwright on the Bonanza television show. Then I read in a fan magazine that his real name was Eugene Orowitz, so that was the end of that fantasy!

Daniel Kelly Candidate for County Commissioner

As I continue to focus on the Daniel Kelly family and descendants of St Paul, Minnesota, I have come across this newspaper clipping from the St. Paul Globe of September 14, 1902.

The article reads:

Daniel Kelly, candidate for renomination on the Democratic ticket for county commissioner, is one of St. Paul's respected citizens; came to St. Paul July 5, 1856, and shortly afterwards commenced contracting in company with his brothers in building roads, etc., and later in supplying the frontier forts and Indian agencies. This business was continued for some years and many times attended with great peril. He is in the real estate and insurance business, offices 418 Pioneer Press building. Mr. Kelly was secretary of old Hope No. 3 volunteer fire department for five years. He is a territorial and junior pioneer.

Mr. Kelly is now county commissioner, filling the unexpired term of the vanquished George B. Whitehorne. the honorable city council appointed Mr. Kelly last October. His efforts at all times are in behalf of the taxpayers and economy, with fairness in all matters. He is a man of great executive ability, diligent and active in all county manners, and with his knowledge in real estate values is of great importance.