Birthday Roulette

[Published October 25, 2010]

Do you know ANYONE born on these dates?

October 31^st

February 29^th

March 10^th

June 28^th

August 19^th

In my database of over 1,700 descendants, spouses of descendants, and parents of spouses with known birthdays, no one was born on these five dates.  On average, with this size of group, every date would have four to five birthdays.  If the calendar where a roulette wheel, I wouldn’t place a bet on the little ball landing on any of these dates!   

Of course February 29^th is the rarest of days to have a birthday, because it only occurs every four years (due to leap year). Often people with this birthday celebrate it either on February 28^th or March 1^st.  Each of these dates in my database has six birthdays, making me wonder if some are actually February 29^th births.

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Size of the Thomas and Elizabeth Ducklow Family Tree

[Published September 30, 2010]

How big is the Ducklow family tree today?  How many descendants do our common ancestral grandparents (Thomas and Elizabeth) have?  The short answer is that there are over 1,000 descendants.  Not all of the descendants have been identified, but the upper number is likely less than 1,500.  

Here is an update on the size of the family Thomas and Elizabeth Ducklow / Dukelow family tree by generation as of September 2010:

1^st Generation: Thomas and Elizabeth had 13 children; 8 sons and 5 daughters

2^nd Generation: Those 13 begat 30 children

3^rd Generation: Those 30 begat 80 children

4^th Generation: Those 80 begat 205 children (so far)

5^th Generation: Those 205 begat 383 children (so far)

6^th Generation: Those 383 begat 303 children (so far)

7^th Generation: Those 303 begat 46 children (so far)

8^th Generation: None of the 46 has children yet.  The oldest four are between 17 and 24 years old—the 9^th generation will arrive soon enough.

Working on the family tree over the last four years has brought some perspective that this hobby will certainly be a life-long endeavor.  The number of descendants to identify becomes larger and larger over time.  As each generation comes into child producing years, the mathematics of geometric progression causes the numbers to explode. When the 7^th generation is completely done producing children there will be over 6,000 descendants forming the 8^th generation.  And when the 8^th generation is done having babies, their progeny, the 9th generation, will count over 15,000.    

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Footnote:  The average birthrate is estimated to be 2.51 children for each descendant. All numbers presented do include adopted children. The term begat is defined to mean, “Was the parent of.”  

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Did Christopher Columbus Need a Green Card?

[Published August 8, 2010]

Another recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune caught my attention.  On the front page of the August 6^th, 2010 edition was a story about St. Paul hosting The National Poetry Slam.  Think raucous wrestling-crowd behavior combined with rhyming in a competitive environment and you begin to get an idea.  This is a big deal to those involved and attracts spoken-word artists from across the country.  This weekend’s competition is the Super-Bowl event of the field.

While a national slam poetry contest is interesting in and of itself, it’s part of a poem recited by a New York man that caught my attention.  The Tribune article quotes Jamaal St. John, a New Yorker, giving a reading of a poem on immigrants and U.S. History, saying in part,

“Then ask them what their life would’ve been like if the Indians had had tighter immigration policies.” 

This line hit me hard.  I think he has a point. What would our world be like if the Native Americans had insisted that the first Europeans climb back upon their ships and sail back home?  Would there even had been an “us” to have this discussion if this had happened? 

When we debate immigration policy in America, we need to remember that our ancestors came to this land without an invitation and the first peoples of America did not ask us to see a “green card.”  

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A Month to Die For

Are There Seasons for Death?

[Published August 5, 2010]

In making causal conversation with an acquaintance at a recent wedding, he told me he worked for a funeral home, assisting the funeral director various ways.   I wondered if there were seasons to the funeral business, so I asked.  I was a bit surprised at his answer.  His experience was there were more deaths with the changing of the seasons, that is to say more funerals in the spring and fall.  The implication he was making was that the seasonal change triggered people who where fighting death to relax and allow death to occur.  This conversation got me wondering if this was the case for the history of deaths in the Greater Ducklow family. So I checked.

Left: Charles Ducklow Family Plot Maker in Woodlawn Cemetery, Sparta, Monroe County, Wisconsin

Of 236 known death dates of descendants and their spouses from the year 1850 to year 2010, the month with highest count was January with 28.  November had the fewest with 13.   Only one month was right on the average—that was May with 20.  The data also does not indicate a “cycle,” climbing and falling in a predictable manner, but rather is variable from month to month.  Frankly, I’m not sure what this means other than to say it appears to be random, and the month with the fewest days has fewer deaths—February.

At least according to one one-line source, January is month with the highest number of deaths in America.  The same source claims September be the month with the fewest deaths. So perhaps in my acquaintances direct experience the higher numbers occur in the spring and fall, but for our family history it’s the dead of winter—in January (pun intended).

Table

Deaths by Month

January      28

February    16

March        23

April          16

May           20

June           24

July           24

Aug           18

September 16

October     24

November 13

December  14

Total       236

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Footnote1 : Source is:   http://www.webanswers.com/health/months-as-ranked-highest-to-lowest-death-rate-u-s-66e524

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A Question of Grave Concern

(Pun Fully Intended)

[Published July 31, 2010]

Here is a question to consider: If your spouse preceded you in death and you later re-married, as you approached the end of your life would you choose to be buried along side your first spouse, or placed next to your second? Or both, if possible? What factors would guide your choice?

This question has been faced and answered by several descendants in the Greater Ducklow family and is a question that will be answered by several others in the next few years.  Of those that already have faced this dilemma it appears that two important questions drove their ultimate decision: “Who was I married to the longest?” and “Who did I have children with?”  Perhaps a third and fourth consideration came into play too: “Does my second wife have a logical burial location if she is not buried near me?” and “Is there room to be buried next to one spouse vs. another?”

Here is how five in the  Greater Ducklow family answered the question:

(1) John T Ducklow (1847-1923) is buried next to both of his wives in the LaBelle Cemetery of Oconomowoc.  He was married to Blanche Townsend for four years before she passed in 1903.  They had no children.  John then was wed to Kathryn Nicholson in 1903 and they were married for 19 years.  They had one son. John died in 1923 and was buried next to his first wife Blanche.   Kathryn re-married about four years after John’s death.  The death date and place of her second husband is unknown, but what is apparent is she cherished John dearly, as she was buried next to both him and Blanche.

(2) Nellie Ducklow LaGrander Davis (1876 – 1948) is buried next to her first husband George LaGrander.  Nellie and George had been married about ten years before George’s accidental death in 1905.  Nellie and George had three children together.  Six years later Nellie married Albert Davis.  They were married 19 years upon Nellie’s death.  Nellie and Albert had no children together.  Nellie is buried next to George the Spring Lake Cemetery near Spring Valley.  Second husband Albert Davis is buried in the Poplar Hill Cemetery near Rock Elm next to his first wife Luella Weldon.  The apparent decision that both Albert and Nellie made was to be buried next to the spouse from which they had children, even though the length of their marriage to each other was longer than to their respective first spouses.

(3) Frank Erwin Ducklow (1885-1975) is buried next to his second wife, Jessie Roatch in the Spring Lake Cemetery.  Frank out-lived three wives.  Frank’s first wife, Francis Prine, died in 1910 shortly after giving birth to her son Willis. She is buried in the Clayfield cemetery in rural Pierce County.  Frank and Francis had only been married two years upon her death.  Two years later Frank married his second wife Jessie Roatch and they had seven children together.  Frank and Jessie were wed for 35 years upon her death in 1947.  In 1948 Frank married Josie Roatch McCleod, Jessie’s widowed sister.  Frank and Josie were married 17 years before Josie’s death in 1965.  Josie was buried next to her first husband Albert McCleod in the Maple Grove Cemetery near Ellsworth.  Frank and Josie had no children together. In Frank’s case, he is buried next to wife he was married to the longest and with whom had the most children..

(4) Clayton Joseph Ducklow (1893 - 1965) is buried next to his first wife, Mary McMenamin.  Mary and Clayton wed in 1910 and were married 45 years upon Mary’s death in 1955.  Together they had six children together.  In 1959 Clayton married Jane Schimmel.  They later divorced, year unknown; but the marriage was short, less than five years and produced no children.  Clayton and Mary are buried in Resurrection Cemetery.  In Clayton’s case, he is buried next to the wife of more than four decades and with whom he had his children.

(5) Clarence T Blair (1908 – 2006) is buried next to his first wife, Alta Hammann.  Clarence and Alta married 52 years upon Alta’s death in 1988.  Clarence and Alta had two children together.   In 1991 Clarence married Clara (Living).   They were married five years upon Clarence’s death; this marriage had no children.  Clarence and Alta are buried in the Wayside Cemetery near Barron.  Clarence is next to his bride of five plus decades of marriage and with whom he had his children.

The pattern of being buried next to the spouse you spent the most years with seems to be the dominate factor. 

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Footnotes:

All the cemetery’s mentioned are in Wisconsin, with the exception of Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota Heights, MN.

There are other examples of a Ducklow descendant passing, and the surviving spouse re-married.  I have chosen not to publish the details for concern over privacy and in some cases lack of vital statistical data to provide accurate facts.

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“When Harry Protestant Met Sally Catholic”

Protestantism and Catholicism in the Greater Ducklow Family

[Published June 29, 2010, Updated July 30, 2010]

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Ashippun

Our common ancestral grandparents, Thomas and Elizabeth Ducklow [Dukelow], were faithful and devote members of St. Pauls’s Church in Ashippun, Wisconsin [see footnote].  St. Paul’s is an Anglican-based Episcopal church. Thomas and Elizabeth were active church members and no doubt were tightly connected to their faith community from the earliest days of craving-out a homestead in the wilderness of Wisconsin in the mid-1840s until their last days that God gave them breath on Earth.  Evidence of their devotion is seen in the church records that show all of their children born in Wisconsin were baptized at St. Pauls’s [see footnote]. While it is not known if Thomas and Elizabeth knew each other while each lived in Ireland (the earliest evidence of their meeting is when they wed in New York State) they each likely came to their protestant faith in a similar way: As children and young adults they attended the dominate Anglican Church of Ireland.  They developed a protestant world-view by adopting their parents’ and extended families’ beliefs and by formal and informal church teachings of the Anglican Church.

From the late 1600s until nearly the end of the 1900s the religious and political climate in Ireland was highly polarized around beliefs. Simply put, Catholics and Protestants were socially and religiously segregated—they lived in two distinct subcultures. Protestants were the minority population of Ireland but held most of the political power while Catholics were the majority population but had few positions of authority outside of the Roman Catholic Church.  There is a long history of how this came to be—a complicated history that reaches back into the 1300s that will not be detailed here.  But one result of the unfolding of this history was the creation of a set of statutes, called Penal Laws, which, among many things, forced generations of Catholics to be uneducated and therefore illiterate, unskilled and impoverished.  Penal laws rarely allowed Catholics to ascend their poverty, and forced most to remain in Ireland’s lowest social and working classes.

The opinion held by most Irish Protestants living in the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries, and the view likely embraced by our ancestral grandparents, Thomas and Elizabeth, is that Catholics were not to be socialized with, and certainly not were worthy of marriage to their sons or daughters. After years of imposed Penal Laws, Catholics (from a Protestant view) became synonymous with being uncouth, unrefined, uneducated and ill mannered.  If any of Thomas and Elizabeth’s 11 adult children had married someone from the Catholic faith they very likely would have been shunned and disowned.  Such a decision would have been a serious betrayal to a family that took enormous risks to immigrate to America to improve their own economic and social standing.  Even as the Irish Penal Laws were phased out in the late 1700s and into early 1800s, marriage of a Protestant to a Catholic was viewed an economic, social, religious step down.

First Known Ducklow Protestant / Catholic Marriages

The barrier to marrying Catholics propagated through the Ducklow descendants for many years. This can be seen by reviewing the number of Protestant / Catholic marriages at each generation.  Of course it is no surprise that no one in the first generation—that is Thomas and Elizabeth’s children—married a Catholic spouse.  The barrier was eventually crossed in the second generation.  Of Thomas and Elizabeth’s 30 grandchildren, three are known to married Catholic spouses.

Vern and Mina Ducklow and first child, Lamont.  Circa 1909

Vern Ducklow was the first cross the line, so to speak.  He was the son of George and Emma Ducklow (George was Thomas and Elizabeth’s sixth child).  Vern married Mina Bowen in July of 1907. While it is true that Mina was Catholic, Vern and Mina did not marry in a Catholic church, but rather wed in a civil ceremony in Denver, Colorado.  Through the years Vern was not a regular church attendee, Catholic or otherwise.  He was baptized at age 79 in the Congregational Church (Vern died at age 81) and he apparently attended church more frequently at the end of his life.  Mina appears to have practiced her Catholic faith on an irregular basis too, but perhaps was more connected to a church than Vern.  Near her death she was given last rites and upon death had a Catholic funeral.  None of Vern or Mina’s four children practiced the Catholic faith.

Clayton Ducklow, Circa 1908

The second Thomas and Elizabeth grandchild to break the Protestant / Catholic barrier was Clayton Ducklow, youngest brother of Vern.  Clayton married Mary Magdalene McMenamin in September of 1910.  (Could there a name more Catholic than that?) Clayton converted to Catholicism shortly before or after his marriage to Mary and appears to have been an active member of the Catholic Church his entire married life. All six of Clayton and Mary’s children were devote Catholics.

It seems George and Emma Ducklow, while members of the Methodist Church and perhaps the Congregational Church, did not hold strong religious convictions and did not appear to be regular attendees of a church.  One wonders if this lack of a strong church connection allowed them a more liberal position and a willingness to accept two of their son’s decisions to marry Catholic women.  Also, the guiding influence that Grandparents Thomas and Elizabeth might have had on George and Emma’s children was likely very limited due to the distance George lived from his parents (The distance from Spring Valley to Ashippun is about 260 miles, a difficult span to travel by horse).  It is also note-worthy that both Thomas and Elizabeth had passed-away (in 1892 and 1904 respectively) before any of their grandchildren married spouses of the Catholic faith.

Elmer Ducklow Circa 1900

The third Ducklow grandchild of Thomas and Elizabeth to marry a Catholic spouse was Elmer Ducklow, son of Charles and Eva Ducklow (Charles was Thomas and Elizabeth's seventh child).  Elmer and Elizabeth Wagner married in January of 1911. It appears that Elmer did not convert to Catholicism as he was not buried with his wife in the Catholic cemetery; he is buried near his parents in the Sparta city cemetery.  Elmer and Elizabeth’s only child, Lyle, was a practicing Catholic.

Outside of these three grandchildren, all other 27 grandchildren married spouses that either had no clear church affliction, or were also Protestants. Thomas and Elizabeth’s apparent strong influence over the faith values of their children and grandchildren spanned from the marriage of their first daughter, Mary Ann’s in 1865 through the final marriage of their grandson Frank Ducklow Sr. in 1948.

Protestant / Catholic Marriage Three Generations Removed

It was not until the great grandchildren grew-up to marriage-age that the strong Catholic / Protestant divide was distant enough in history to ignore or perhaps be unaware of.  Of 79 great grandchildren, 12 are known to marry Catholic spouses.  This is a ratio of 1 out of 7 marriages.  Compare this to the ratio of 1 out of 10 marriages at the grandchildren level.  

Here is the list of 12 great grandchildren that that married Catholic spouses:

(1) Evaline Good (daughter of James and Effie Good, granddaughter of Mary Ann Ducklow and Frank Good) married Francis “Con” Hogan in June of 1917.   Evaline was reported to have attended both Catholic and Protestant services much of her married life.

(2) Ida LaGrander (daughter of Nellie and George LaGrander, granddaughter of George and Emma Ducklow) married Daniel Smith in May 1924.

(3) George LaGrander (son of Nellie and George LaGrander, grandson of George and Emma Ducklow) married Genevieve Strop in June 1928. 

(4) Lyle Ducklow (son of Elmer and Elizabeth Ducklow, grandson of Charles and Eva Ducklow) married Loretta Rice in October of 1936.

(5) Winnifred Ducklow (daughter of Clayton and Mary Ducklow, granddaughter of George and Emma Ducklow) married Living Lindee about 1940.

(6) Living P. Ducklow (daughter of Clayton and Mary Ducklow, granddaughter of George and Emma Ducklow) married E. Reynolds in June of 1946.

(7) Frank Ducklow Jr. (son of Frank and Josie Ducklow, grandson of George and Emma Ducklow) married Living G. M. in August 1946.

(8) Thomas Ducklow (son of Clayton and Mary Ducklow, grandson of George and Emma Ducklow) married Living W. O. in February 1950.

(9) George Ducklow (son of Clayton and Mary Ducklow, grandson of George and Emma Ducklow) married Living D. H. in February 1951.

(10) Milton Blair (son of Charles and Nellie Blair, grandson of John and Elizabeth Ducklow Hanson) married Living A. H. in1954.

(11) Mary Ducklow (daughter of Clayton and Mary Ducklow, grandson of George and Emma Ducklow) married Patrick Hannafin in 1954.

(12) Lyle Ducklow (son of Frank and Jessie Ducklow, grandson of George and Emma Ducklow) married Living M. T. in February of 1957.

Even as recent as the late 1950s, the Catholic / Protestant divide still echoed from our common grandparent’s past. Mae Tschida Ducklow recently told the story [see footnote] that shortly before being married to Lyle Ducklow (Frank Ducklow’s son), Lyle’s second oldest brother, Alois told Lyle that if he married a Catholic girl they would not be welcomed in Alois’ home.  Lyle and Mae did not heed Alois’ threat and went on to marry.  Eventually Alois’ did accept Lyle and Mae as part of the family, but an unspoken tension lingered between the brothers regarding Lyle converting to Catholicism.

Protestant / Catholic Marriages Four or More Generations Removed

Too little reliable marriage or church data has been gathered on the great, great grandchildren of Thomas and Elizabeth Ducklow to provide a fair analysis of Catholic / Protestant marriages in the Grater Ducklow family.  As speculation, the ratio might be 1 in 4 or maybe 1 in 5 marriages crossing the Catholic / Protestant line, (if one or both spouses indeed attends a church at all!) What can safely be said is that a Protestant marrying a Catholic spouse today is hardly considered a scandal or a betrayal to one’s family or church as it did 125 years ago. A marriage formed today based on love and a desire to share lives together seems to have generally trumped the historic difficulty of marrying a spouse professing a different flavor of Christian faith.

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Footnote: The Episcopal Church in America is a legacy branch of Anglican Church of England.  The Church of Ireland is also a legacy branch of the Anglican Church. As a broad statement of values, the Anglican churches views itself to be Catholic, in the sense that its beliefs and practices are based on traditions dating back to the beginning of a formal church, and also Reformed, in that it does not accept the authority of the Roman Catholic Pope.

Footnote: Thomas and Elizabeth’s children George, Charles, Baby Elizabeth, Elizabeth, James, Peter, and Lucinda were all baptized at St. Johns Episcopal Church.  Thomas and Elizabeth were both buried in the church cemetery, as well as their children, Fanny, Thomas, and Lucinda.

Footnote:  Charles and Eva Ducklow appear to have adopted the traditions of the Masonic Order and associated Eastern Star organization as their main religion.   They were not married in a church, but rather at the Dunn County Courthouse. Their funeral services were performed by Masonic and Eastern Star traditions in a Masonic Temple.  They are buried in the Sparta city cemetery, with Masonic symbols on their markers.

Footnote: The story of Lyle Ducklow being discouraged from marrying Catholic Mae Ducklow told to Jeff Ducklow by Mae Ducklow on June 27, 2010 at the home of Tony and Linda Ducklow.

Footnote: The author in no way condones the views held towards Catholics by our ancestors.  The attitudes and behaviors can only be described as unjust.  

Mom’s First Child & 

Happy Anniversary to "The Pill"

[Published Mother’s Day, May 9, 2010]

For the second time in the past few days an article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune got me pondering our Greater Ducklow family history.  The “Moms’ new due date,” article [May 9, 2010] on the front page generally addressed the fact that women over the age of 40 are having babies more frequently than all other age groups.  A small side bar to the article provided the following information:

National average age of women having first child:

21 in 1970s; 25 in 2006

I wondered about the Greater Ducklow family—what has been the average age of women in our family when they had their first child through the decades?

While I don’t have complete data for all births in the greater family, there is a good pool to work from.  The table that follows is based on 321 women that are either descendants or spouses of descendants [see footnote] who have delivered at least one child (and where the age of the mother and date of the birth (or adoption) are known):

Greater Ducklow Family average age of women having first child (by decade): 

1920s: 25.3  based on 12 births or adoptions

1930s: 24.8  based on 18 births or adoptions

1940s: 24.2  based on 22 births or adoptions

1950s: 23.8  based on 32 births or adoptions

1960s: 23.3  based on 30 births or adoptions

1970s: 22.7  based on 59 births or adoptions

1980s: 25.7  based on 49 births or adoptions

1990s: 28.0  based on 48 births or adoptions

2000s: 26.3  based on 51 births or adoptions

Prior to the 1920s, the data is too slim to analyze.

So compared then national average age presented in the Star-Tribune article, the women in Greater Ducklow family on average waited a year and half longer to start having children in the 1970s.  And they waited about a year and a quarter longer than the national average in the 2000s.  Matching the national trend, women in our family started having babies about four years later from the 1970s compared to 2000s.

A big reason why...

Half-used package of birth control pills.  Image from Wikipeda Commons.









What the Star-Tribune article should have mentioned, but didn’t, was that it also happens to be the 50^th anniversary—on Mother's Day 2010—of the Birth Control Pill [see footnote].  Use of this prescription in the decades since its advent has significantly empowered women to choose when they might become pregnant.  Wide use came in the late 1970s when it was no longer illegal for unwed women to take them and  improvements were made to formulas causing fewer side-effects.  The "pill" as a  birth control option no doubt is a major contributing factor in the rise of the age when women nationally, and certainly within our family, decided to have their first child.

So Happy Mother’s Day. And Happy Anniversary, Birth Control Pill.

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Footnote: Descendants or spouses of descendants of Thomas and Elizabeth Ducklow, the ancestral grandparents of most of the Ducklows living in the United States.

Footnote: See link from U.S. News and World Report: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/womens-health/articles/2010/05/07/birth-control-pill-turns-50-7-ways-it-changed-lives.html 

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Way Distant Ancestors

[Published May 7, 2010]

A front-page article in today’s (May 7, 2010) Minneapolis' Star-Tribune newspaper announced, “There’s a little bit of Neanderthal in a lot of us.”   Using DNA analysis, scientists have determined that modern humans (Homo sapiens) mated with Neanderthals tens of thousands of years ago.  Because of this co-mingling eons-ago, somewhere between 1%-4% of our genes today are traceable to ancient cave men.  Research has determined that humans and Neanderthals interbred while both occupied the same region in the Middle East some 80,000 years ago.

If you ever feel like frequent grunting is part of your nature, here might
be the answer!

Image of a Neanderthal Man from Wikipedia

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One Lesson of Genealogy
[Published May 4, 2010]

"If you go back far enough you find that your ancestors came from somewhere different and from someone different.  Genealogy teaches that there is no pure race, tribe, or religion.  The indisputable truth is that we are all mongrels and all cousins."  - Paraphrased from Irish Government Web Site on Genealogy Research.

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The Awful Storms of 30 July 1885 that 
Killed Thomas Ducklow
[Published April 25, 2010]

Thomas Ducklow, second son and fourth child of Thomas and Elizabeth Ducklow, was tragically killed by lightening while sleeping in his farmhouse bed in the early morning of July 30, 1885. He was 36 years old.  Two accounts of his death and details of the storm that killed him were originally published in the Hartford Press (Hartford, Wisconsin) on July 31st and August 7th of 1885 and are re-published here [see footnote].  They are a fascinating read.

Left: Lightening Image from Wiki Commons

Four things you might notice while reading these accounts is how values, sensitivities, and child labor laws have changed in 125 years:

(1) Newspaper writing of the day was both flowery and graphic in detail,
(2) Priority of values —the first article describes the loss of barns, hay, equipment and farm animals ahead of the loss of human life,
(3) The innocent description of two men in the same bed for the practical purpose of sleeping,
(4) The apparent starting age of a shoemaker apprentices was about 11 years old



Here are the two newspaper accounts:

Hartford Press

July 31, 1885

Page 3, Col. 4

A terrific electrical storm passed over this locality last Wednesday night.  The storm, which commenced about eleven o’clock, was preceded by a violent wind, which was followed by heavy rain and in many places hail.  There was on continuous roar of thunder accompanied by wind and incessant, flashes of lightning which lighted the whole heavens and earth for miles around which at times rendered the midnight as bright as the glare of the noonday sun.  Our citizens were soon aroused and lights were seen flashing from many windows.  Soon the sound of the fire bell was heard ringing an alarm, and the voices and hurried footsteps of the firemen were evidence that the lightning had effected its work of destrction [sic] somewhere in the neighborhood.  It was soon learned that two large barns one belonging to Eugene Anderson, and other to Bruno Gehring, just north of the city had been struck and were in flames.  Both barns with their contents were entirely consumed.  Mr. Gehring’s loss aside from his barn was about twenty-five tons of hay, and a quantity of farming tools.  Mr. Anderson’s loss was much greater, he having one valuable horse killed, and a calf smothered in the flames.  He lost about twenty tons of hay, all his farming tools, wagons, sleights and harness.  Both barns were insured.  The house of Thomas Duklow [sic] in the north part of Ashippun was struck by lightning, and Mr. Duklow [sic] was killed by the stroke while in his bed.  This is the saddest result of the storm.  A son of Mrs. Wapp of this city, who was sleeping in the same bed with Duklow as badly shocked but it is thought the will recover.  It is believed that other accidents happened in the adjoining towns, but which up to this writing have not been reported.

Hartford Press

August 7, 1885

Page 3, Col. 3-4

DEATH NOTICES

Thomas Ducklow, whom we reported in our last issue as being killed by lightning at his home in Ashippun, on Wednesday night of last week, was born in the city of New York in the year 1849, and had he lived until September next, would have been thirty six years old.  He was a single man, and his sister was keeping house for him at the time the fatal accident occurred.  There were at the time four persons in the house, all sleeping on the upper floor.  Mr. Ducklow and the hired boy, Wapp occupying one bed, and a brother of deceased in another bed in the same room, and his sister who slept in an adjoining room.  The bolt of electricity struck the chimney, and passed down to the stove pipe into the room, and near where deceased and Wapp were sleeping; leaving the stove pipe the current divided and took different directions.  The fatal portion seemed to leave the pipe in a direct line for the bed.  Coming in contact with the left leg of deceased it passed upward to his head, burning the hair from his left temple.  One of Wapp’s knees that was resting against the body of deceased was injured so that it turned black and he himself was for a time insensible.  Mr. Ducklow must have been awake at the time, as only a few minutes before he was up and closed the windows.  The deceased was well known and highly respected in this and the neighborhood where he lived, having resided in this vicinity since he was an infant one year old.  He was a shoemaker by trade, and in years past worked for different firms at his trade in this city.  In fact he served his first apprenticeship and learned his trade here with Mr. Fred Brause; some twenty five years ago.  While a resident here, as elsewhere he enjoyed the earned and honored reputation of being a sober, steady industrious and honorable man, any and all of which must be long credited to his memory by all the living who knew him in life.  He was buried at St. Paul’s cemetery on Saturday last, a large concourse of friends and neighbors being in attendance.

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Right: Grave marker for Thomas Ducklow. Born Sept. 18, 1848, Died July 30, 1885.  This marker stands approximately 9 feet tall and is one of the largest in the small St. Paul's Cemetery in Ashippun Township, Dodge County, Wisconsin.

The death of son Thomas was a major milestone in Ducklow family history, as has been noted in earlier posts.  Thomas' death was the likely event that set spelling of the Ducklow name used by the greater family in America today.  Prior to his death, the spelling of the family name varied greatly, including Dukelow, Duklow, Duclow and Ducklow.  Note even the difference in spelling in the two accounts above.  Upon Thomas' death, the family decided to purchase a tombstone and have a hire a mason to chisel his name in the stone.  Naturally, the mason needed to know how the family wanted the name spelled.  Our ancestral grandparents Thomas and Elizabeth and Thomas' parents were not literate, and so the decision on the proper spelling was decided by the ten surviving adult children.  They came to choose the "Ducklow" spelling over the more common "Dukelow" spelling in use by many of their cousins.  Once the name was chiseled into Thomas' grave marker, the name became consistantly used by all of Thomas and Elizabeth's children and their descendants.  You might say it was in 1885 that the greater Ducklow family name in America became "written in stone."

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Footnote: The copyright of these articles has expired and they are in the public domain.

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