Minnie Howard and her son Cloyd McMurray
2nd Cousins
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May 5, 2017, 9:40 PM
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Sue:
Thank you for your response on Ancestry.com. Yes, I am Jackie's son. I am married, have 4 grown children and live with my wife and our oldest son in San Clemente, California. If you ever come down this way, it would be fun to meet in person.
Interesting that you are from Juneau, Alaska because my mother-in-law just took my wife and I and 3 of our 4 kids (one could not make it) on a cruise in Alaska. It was beautiful and we had a great time! One of our ports was Juneau. Had a great time there.
I definitely would like to stay in touch and share any information we can. I remember meeting your grandmother,, Minnie McMurray, when I was a kid and she was living in Long Beach. I think she used to knit or crochet slippers for each of us 5 kids for Christmas each year. I also remember hearing a story about a son she had who I believe died in a train crash or something on his way home from serving in World War II. Very sad story. I think he was serving in Trinidad if I am remembering correctly.
I have always been interested in genealogy but still somewhat of a novice and have never had much time to work on it. But I'm getting more and more interested, maybe because I'm getting older. My mom has a cousin, Joe Howard, son of Lester Howard, who sent me a thumb drive with 64,000 names on it. I'm still going through them trying to sort them all out. He was director of the National Agricultural Library for over 10 years.
Do you have an ancestry family tree? If so, we could share our trees with each other to collaborate. Let me know if that would interest you. Thanks again for getting back to me.
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Mon, May 15, 2017, 2:43 PM
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Hi Bill--
I see that you found the link to my tree on Ancestry. I'm a rank beginner at this, and went through a flurry of activity a while ago to put the tree together. I did try to make it as accurate as possible, given the info that I have. I'm not much of a committed genealogy person, but I do find it interesting. I remember Uncle Bill (who I'm sure you also knew) talking about "cousin Joe Harvey Howard" who worked in DC and had done extensive genealogy work. Good to know he's given you the data he's collected over the years. I have to say that one of my favorite family tree branches is your grandmother Ala and her sister Mattye marrying a father and his son...talk about complicated! And thanks for passing along the tale of Minnie and the knitted slippers--my mom knitted the same slippers for my friends at Christmas when I was a kid.
My mom was affected deeply by the death of her brother in the war (Minnie's son (Cloyd, known as Mac or Buddy). Minnie and her husband divorced in ~1924, and she never remarried, which was pretty unusual in that era. She was quite a wanderer; they never stayed anywhere too long, and consequently Theda and Mac were exceptionally close. As I have pieced his story together, he joined the Marines before the war, and was serving on Guam on December 8, 1941 when the island was invaded by the Japanese. He was sent to a POW camp in Japan, and was able to communicate only sporadically with his family. When the war ended in 1945, they expected him to return home, but he didn't, and the government kept them in limbo for a time, saying they had no information regarding his whereabouts. Several months later Minnie received a telegram saying that he had died sometime in late 1944, as a result of an accident in the rail yard where the POWs worked. This was a devastating blow to Minnie and Theda, as you can imagine. Minnie persisted in her quest to find out more details, and through a series of remarkable coincidences, she connected in the early 1950's with 2 former POWs and a ghostwriter who had written a book about their experiences...which included a section about Cloyd and his death, and how well-liked and respected he was by comrades and captors alike. I've got a copy of this book and also the few letters they received from Mac while he was in the camp. He sounded like a great guy--I'm sorry I never had the chance to meet him.
My branch of our shared tree is rather truncated--no other siblings on my mom's side, and I'm an only child with no kids, so I'm happy to know that you're carrying on as the repository of family history. Thanks for doing all the hard work this involves, and let me know if you have other questions. I'm happy to be in touch with you; my only other contacts with the family are Marilyn Wooldridge, Uncle Jack Howard's daughter who lives in Texas, and Theda's half-sister Nadine's daughter Diane Atherton, who lives in Colorado (she also contacted me through Ancestry, about the same time you did).
I'll certainly let you know if I find myself in SoCal--please do the same if you make your way to the PacNW.
Regards,
Sue
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Mon, May 15, 2017, 5:19 PM
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Mom:
Do you know Sue? Please see her interesting stories below.
Love, Bill
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Sun, Aug 19, 2018, 2:09 PM
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Sue:
Sorry for the delay in communication. I just do this sporadically, although I love family history, I am still a full-time attorney with a busy practice.
Any chance you could send me the title and author of the book that describes Cloyd's time as a POW in Japan. Or, if you could just scan and email the pages that discuss that, I would greatly appreciate it. Do you have any family photos or other memorabilia of our common relatives? Hope you are doing well.
Bill
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Aug 26, 2018, 8:50 PM
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Mom, Vicki, and I were discussing this today when I was over for lunch. I will let you know when and if I get a copy of the book.
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Aug 27, 2018, 7:32 AM
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Very interesting!
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Aug 27, 2018, 10:38 AM
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Aug 27, 2018, 11:29 PM
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Thanks Bill for sending us Sue's letter. Will be interested to see what's in the book.
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Aug 28, 2018, 8:18 AM
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So interesting Bill and I didn’t know Aunt Minnie’s son died as a result of an accident in the rail yard where the POWs worked. I always thought he died from an accident on his way home from the war. So sad she had not only lost her son but had to work so hard to find out about any information on his whereabouts and if/when he died. So heart breaking! But...I am grateful through her search that she not only found out that he was well thought of and liked by his friends but also his captures. That is so remarkable! He must have been such a great man!
Thank you for sharing Bill and connecting with our 2nd cousin, makes our world feel a lot smaller and our extended family a lot closer.
Love,
Kathi
Thank you for sharing Bill and connecting with our 2nd cousin, makes our world feel a lot smaller and our extended family a lot closer.
Love,
Kathi
| Mar 27, 2019, 4:49 PM | Reply | ||
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Hi Bill--
Nice to hear from you...no worries about sporadic nature, I certainly understand, and whenever you appear in the inbox is fine with me. In fact, now its MY turn to apologize for delayed reply!
I'm attaching cover/title page info from the book, as well as the three pages that mention my uncle Cloyd McMurry. The story told in the book is sad enough (I must confess that I get a little choked up every time I read it), but then to consider the years that passed before Minnie and Theda even knew what had happened to him...a true family tragedy. At least Minnie's persistence paid off; eventually she received his ashes and had them buried in Olustee OK (her ashes are in the adjacent plot).
(I'm not sure what's going on with my attachments, but you may have to look at the very bottom of this string, below your first email)
While searching for the book, I came across the attached photo of Mattye, Ala, Jack (holding his and Rita's daughter Marilyn, I think), Rita, Theda (always in the back because she was so tall), Minnie, Bill and their mother Louise Victoria. Looks like it was taken in the early 1950's, but I don't know what the occasion was. I haven't seen many shots of multiple Howard siblings with their mother--the original is quite small, so I enlarged it as much as possible without degrading the image. I have an entire suitcase of Minnie's photos, and as I go through them ("one of these days"), I'll certainly pass along any I find of our common relatives.
I'm glad to have someone in the family who's attempting to keep track of all this genealogical info--thanks! I look forward to keeping in touch with you, and hope you're also doing well.
Cheers,
Sue
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