Frontier Justice
Jan. 7th, 2006 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twilight33It was slightly painful to look through our state's digital archives collection of this name today and find my (at the time) elderly fourth-great grandparents, my third-great grandfather & his brother listed as defendants on an 1879 mortgage foreclosure case in Thurston County.
The family story only tells that the land was sold to meet the mortgage after the patriarch was paralyzed by a stroke, not that it was foreclosed. Considering this is a line of multiple generations of farmers, my guess is the shame associated with foreclosure on their land may have been the reason why the whole western clan purposely changed the spelling of their last name by the next year's federal census in California and the fourth-greats' tombstone in 1882.
The little guy in my icon is my great grandfather around 1900. I bite my lower lip the same way when I'm pensive and something about him reminds me of Kieran.
The family story only tells that the land was sold to meet the mortgage after the patriarch was paralyzed by a stroke, not that it was foreclosed. Considering this is a line of multiple generations of farmers, my guess is the shame associated with foreclosure on their land may have been the reason why the whole western clan purposely changed the spelling of their last name by the next year's federal census in California and the fourth-greats' tombstone in 1882.
The little guy in my icon is my great grandfather around 1900. I bite my lower lip the same way when I'm pensive and something about him reminds me of Kieran.
