1. Joseph Perry Micheau and Edna Julia Lewis were married on 27 November 1913, at St. Francis Xavier Church, in Carbondale, Illinois. They were married for 62 years before Joe died in 1975. On their 50th wedding anniversary in 1963, they received a special telegram from Pope John XXIII.
2. She was, at the end of [...]
Continue reading about Love Letters from Prairie du Rocher: Epilogue
Joseph Perry Micheau (born 23 Feb 1888, Prairie du Rocher, Illinois; died 15 Nov 1975, St Louis, Missouri) was a descendant of the French Negroes of Illinois–originally slaves from Jamaica brought to Upper Louisiana by French entrepeneur Phillipe Renault in the 1720’s. The Micheau family represent well the social and cultural lives of the descendants [...]
Continue reading about Valentines Day: Love Letters from Prairie du Rocher
From Centennial History of Missouri, Vol. III (St Louis-Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1921)
Charles W. Steiner, president and treasurer of the Steiner Engraving & Badge Company, of St. Louis, was here born October 5, 1860, the son of Otto and Mrs. Katherine (Oehler) Steiner, who came from Germany to the new world in early childhood. [...]
Continue reading about St Louis History: Charles W. Steiner, 1860-1950
During November, which is Black Catholic History Month, I wrote about the Knights of Peter Claver. A few days ago, I came across this badge from St Elizabeth’s Catholic Church in St Louis. St Elizabeth’s was a parish established especially for black Catholics by Fr. John Markoe and his brother, Fr. William Markoe, both Jesuits, [...]
Sometime after their marriage in 1913, Joseph P. Micheau and his wife Edna Lewis moved their family from Prairie du Rocher, Illinois, to St. Louis, Missouri. According to Joseph’s 1917 draft card, they lived at 4210 Cote Brilliant and then apparently at 3128 Fair Avenue. The 1920 census places them on Fair Avenue. Later, however, [...]
Continue reading about Black History Month: A Strange Letter and an un-Fair Move?
In recognition of Black Catholic Hisotry Month, we reprise a popular post from 2008.
Originally Published at GeneaBlogie on Tuesday, February 12, 2008.
Who was the first African-American Catholic Priest?
The answer is . . . it depends on who you ask. And sometimes the same person will give two different answers!
The contenders are Father James Healy (1830-1900), [...]
Continue reading about Black Catholic History Month: The First African-American Priest
Originally appeared on Monday, November 13, 2006 at GeneaBlogie
Updated: photo added; some dates corrected
An almost sinful obsession of mine after genealogy is watching Gunsmoke [TVLand, most weekends; also early mornings during the week; check local listings (Update~11/04/09: Gunsmoke is not currently running on TVLand)]. Some weekends, it seems as if the time passes and [...]
Continue reading about Black Catholic History Month: Gunsmoke & Catholic Genealogy
This was produced for the 17th edition of “Smile for the Camera”
I really don’t have much in the way of photographs on my ancestors’ school days. I have in the past posted school census records from the very early twentieth century in Milam County, Texas, where my gg-grandmother and her descendants lived. But I know [...]
Continue reading about Good Schools A Staple of Ancestors’ Lives
My great-great-grandfather Ezekiel Johnson collected a bounty for turning himself into the federal government in 1864. Actually, so did a lot of other folks earn such bounties.
Zeke Johnson was held as a slave in Clay County, Missouri, fro the day he was born in 1847 until one day in May, 1864, when he was 17 [...]
Continue reading about How Grandpa Zeke Collected a Bounty on Himself
Last year I wrote an article called “Slaves and Slavs in the U.S. Census (and how to tell the difference!).”
You can find the post here: http://geneablogie.blogspot.com/2008/06/research-tip-slaves-and-slavs-in-us.html. It describes how to find African-Americans by name in the census prior to 1870. Since writing that last year, I’ve continued to experiment with the topic and have discovered [...]
Continue reading about Another Approach to Finding African-American Names in the Census
