Family Notes

 Oviel was born to George W. and Sarah Greenlee in 1894. He grew up in the little farming community of Kurtz, Indiana. He is my first cousin, twice removed, his aunt Lucinda being my great grandmother (on my mother's side). Oviel registered for the draft in June of 1917. He was an unmarried 24 year old who had been working with a railroad gang, laying track for the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville Railroad. A side note: what I found most interesting about this registration was the tab in the bottom left corner. See that? "If person is of African descent, tear off this corner." Note also that on line 12 ("Do you claim exemption from draft (specify grounds)?"), is written the words "physical disability." I wonder what that was? In any case, the exemption was not accepted as valid and Oviel was scooped up by Uncle Sam. He was initially assigned to the 251st Infantry, drilled in Kentucky at Camp Taylor. Sent to France in June of 1918, he was immediatel...

 This is the 4th and last post focusing on my great grandparents and where they were in 1900. The three previous posts are: James Cornelius Spencer (1866-1928) and Mary Addie Winfrey (1870-1944) Enoch Franklin Morris (1877-1938) and Ella May Biddle (1872-1965) James Lawrence McDaniel (1873-1944) and Midia Belle Meeks (1876-1947) The final pair of great grandparents is Clark Pittman (1851-1931) and and Lucinda Greenlee (1864-1900). The Pittmans were a prolific and also long-lived bunch. The earliest in America was Richard Pitman, who was a Quaker settler in New Jersey in the late 1600s. He lived to be 89 and died at Pennsauken Creek, near present-day Camden. The inventory of his estate was valued at $145 and included "9 old books." It was his grandson, another Richard, who would move the family to Bedford County, Pennsylvania, near the Maryland border. This was not a single-family exodus, but many families, all moving around the same time. By now the Pittmans are not Quakers b...