la familia. A box. (slightly edited after talking with my cousin)

Trying to clear things out. So then there's things to run into, like this. A simple carved wooden box, obviously well loved. I do love wooden boxes, I have a few I have rescued, some I have refinished. One I gave to my mom, filled with hand made greeting cards for her to use, it was a cigar box, and I decoupaged a picture on the top. This one I didn't recognize sitting on my shelf, and then I had a vague memory of putting it there, it was my mom's. 

Then I looked at the bottom. This belonged to my great-grandma Doty. Was that Clara Belle or Chara Belle? I am confused. This one belongs to Mrs. H Doty. Belle. 

The bottom of the box. 

So then who wants this? Does one of my grandchildren want a box that belonged to their great-great-great grandmother? Who? How do I figure it out, or do I just put it in "the box" for someone else to figure out? There's a lot of this kind of stuff. My parents were sentimental. I guess their parents, and their parents....... 

I also have a little dish that belonged to my great-great grandmother Ruth Anna Terrell Mills. So that will make it great-great-great-great  grandma to my grandkids. 

I would say oye vay but I'm not Jewish. 

The carved top of the box. I wish I knew who did it. But it says Mrs. H. Doty, Custer Park, IL.  

so was that Clara Belle or Chara Belle? At one time I knew, and if I looked at the paperwork I could figure it out.  

And then there was the cousin who wrote me on Ancestry, telling me there was a mistake in my tree, because of Clara Belle and Chara Belle. She said they were one person, and she's related to the Doty family. But I knew my great grandma Doty, and she is the one who had this box. I also have a necklace of hers.  Was she the Cody Doty. Clara or Chara?? I think Chara. But she went by Belle. Or Aunt Chat. Or was that Clara?

I really should figure that out enough to get it into my brain so I wouldn't forget. Even my mother got confused, though. 

My mother's father's mother lived with my grandparents (maternal) for awhile. When I was eight years old we went to Minnesota and I remember going upstairs to see my great grandma. She was bedridden at that time.  I loved visiting with her as often as I could while we were there. I guess she liked it too, that's when she gave me the necklace that her father gave her when she was 18. That's in a box somewhere, I need to label it too. Maybe even put it in this box that I have no idea exactly where it came from, other than it belonged to my great-grandmother. 

 

Ok. Here you are. My grandparents' families knew each other. My grandpa used to claim he heard Grandma's first cry. If I remember right, they lived in the same house, an upstairs and downstairs apartments kind of thing. I am not sure. So it makes sense that they might intermarry from a couple different directions. 

 This great grandmother, Belle, Mrs. H. Doty. She was born Clara Belle Taylor. Her parents were Anthony Gaveston Taylor and Eliza Taylor. That's who raised my grandpa, his maternal grandparents Anthony and Eliza Taylor. Clara Belle's first husband, my great grandpa Linton, died when my grandpa was 2.  but my great-grandma Clara later married Homer Doty.  so she was Clara Belle Taylor Linton Doty. My other great grandmother was Chara Belle Doty, sister of Homer (who married my other great grandmother) ... and she married George Cody. So she was Chara Belle Doty Cody.  My mother's father's mother was Clara Belle and my mother's mother's mother was Chara Belle.  So Chara Belle married Clara Belle's brother.  She was called "Aunt Chat".  So to part of the family Homer Doty was "grandpa" and to the other he was "uncle Homer". Confused yet??

Now I found somewhere that says....Clara had 4 siblings Another rabbit hole to follow maybe someday.

Clara passed away on month day 1963, at age 92 at Fairmont, MN