Nancy Dawson treasures her family’s history. Here she shows the 1897 wedding dress of her grandmother, Clara Olive Bearss. The cream wool gown featured passementerie, which is an ornamental edging.
Loving hands also sewed satin ribbons across the shoulders and crafted a bustle bow in the same year as an English scientist discovered the electron, long before electric lights became common.* These same hard-working hands also left a legacy of love in quill-penned letters and diaries preserving their stories.
Clara’s husband, Berton Ednor Stall, and relatives hand-built the couple’s first home, which was a 16-by-16-foot rough lumber room where their child was born. Her parents gifted $14 for furnishings, which included a second-hand wood bed with springs and a mattress, a dresser, and four chairs.
The well they dug often generated water that turned clothing yellow, and sometimes Clara cried over how poorly the washing turned out. The young couple defined wealth by their land, a cow, a hog, and a few chickens. Having their own cow meant they had access to fresh milk when convenience stores and pre-packaged baby food didn’t exist.
More than a century later, Clara and Berton’s descendants still live near the shores of Tampa’s Lake Magdalene where the original pair married and settled. Family members tell stories about Old Deck, the horse who traveled with the pioneering settlers from Missouri to Florida and lived 35 years.
Relatives still belong to the church planted in Tampa by Clara’s father, the Rev. Isaac Ward Bearss. Their solid sense of belonging in a stable community is a great inheritance.
“Our lives have been molded by our forefather’s example of faith and steadfastness,” Nancy said.
How are you establishing roots for your descendants?
Today’s Bible verse:
“God shows love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments,” (Exodus 20:6).
Resource for tracing family history:
https://treemily.com/blog/great-websites-for-your-family-history-search/
*https://www.eia.gov/kids/history-of-energy/timelines/electricity.php
