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"Honoring Our Ancestors:
Postcards from the Edge"
by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak

Time for another family treasure rescue! Or more accurately, I should say a partial rescue. (If this topic is new to you, please feel free to visit honoringourancestors.com to check out previous articles on this topic.)

This time I tackled a two-parter and only succeeded with half, so I'm asking for your help to complete the job. Perhaps I should explain. It began when Robert E. Boerner of Nevada sent the following message:

"I have articles that my daughter found years ago in an antique shop that she managed in Idyllwild, California. She gave them to me in order to do genealogy research in hopes of finding a rightful home.

"The articles include an autograph book and postcards; however, the best part is that they apparently were the property of an American Red Cross nurse in France during WWI. The autograph book bears the name of Miss Gladys Cameron and is filled with the most beautiful drawings and writings, all of which are in the French language with dates of 1916, 1917 and 1918. The postcards are scenes of France during or after the war. Three of them were mailed with the date of 1919 and have messages, plus the name of Garnett, and are addressed to a Mrs. M. G. Watkins in Chicago, Illinois. I would like to see these items returned to a family member."

Along with the email, Robert sent about half a dozen remarkable scanned images including a mix of postcards and entries from the autograph book. The pages from the book contained various sketches of flags, flowers, and a nurse assisting wounded soldiers, apparently at a hospital located at Ris-Orangis, near Paris. One included an actual photo of a soldier, and all conveyed expressions of deep gratitude to Miss Cameron who had taken such good care of them. It was also interesting to see that virtually all of the entries noted when and where the particular soldier was wounded. All in all, it was a delightful little time capsule, and given that one of my grandfathers had served in France in WWI and that I happen to be a French-born daughter of an American Army officer, how could I resist?

Postcards First
Although it was tempting to start with the autograph book, the postcards provided a better launching pad for the research because they included an address, time frame, and pair of names. So my first task was to try to find Mrs. M.G. Watkins and discover how she was connected to the fellow named Garnett who sent the postcards from France to Chicago. Although the cards were mostly factual, pointing out various sites in France, they included hints that Mrs. Watkins was more than a casual friend of the writer. One was addressed to "Dearie" and others were signed off with "Love, Garnett" or "devotedly, Garnett."

Since the cards were dated in early 1919, slightly after the entries in the autograph book, one theory was that Mrs. M.G. Watkins was actually nurse Gladys Cameron, freshly married and back in the U.S., but what would the research show? Guessing that Garnett was the postcard recipient's husband and that the "G" in "M.G." might stand for Garnett, I did a search at Ancestry.com on "Garnett Watkins." The World Tree showed four hits, one of which was for Michael Garnett Watkins. This looked promising!

Charlotte's Web
Taking a closer look at the tree uploaded by Charlotte Geier, I saw that Garnett's wife was listed as Carolyn Anne "Carrie" Alsfasser, born on September 15, 1892, in Chicago, Illinois, and estimated to have married (also in Chicago around 1917). Other details indicated that the couple had moved to California at some point and had children. Assuming all this information was correct, Mrs. M.G. Watkins was clearly not the mysterious nurse, Gladys Cameron.

I always like to spot check family trees I find on the Internet, so I did a little more digging. After failing to find a likely Watkins in Chicago in the 1920 census, I decided to search for the address on the cards just to be sure she wasn't there. I did this by using Steve Morse's tools (http://stevemorse.org ) to find the appropriate enumeration district (ED) in the 1930 census, and then backing up with the help of his 1920/1930 converter to locate the same address in 1920. Unfortunately, it appeared that Mrs. M.G. Watkins had already moved on, even though the postcards had been sent to her at that location only about ten months earlier.

Next I searched the 1930 census for "Garnett Watkins" and found a single link that took me straight to Garnett and his Illinois-born wife, Carolyn, in California. A little more searching unearthed them in the 1920 census in California as Michael Watkins and his wife, Carylan, so the cross-country move had apparently occurred during 1919.

Now confident that Charlotte's tree did indeed include the postcard couple, I noticed that she had inserted a remark that family photos were available for viewing on the Internet. Another thirty seconds of web surfing and I found myself looking at a photo of Garnett's father, also named Garnett. A comment beneath the image revealed that Charlotte was a great-niece of this gentleman with a bushy moustache, so—in genealogical terms—was fairly closely related.

Making the Connection
Slightly after midnight I sent Charlotte an e-mail with copies of the postcards attached, asking her if she might help me find the couple's direct descendants. At 10:00 the next morning, I had a response from Charlotte excitedly confirming the connection. And thanks to her assistance, by 2:15 that afternoon, I had a message with the subject "Postcards from the Edge" from the couple's only grandson, Mike Phelps (Now you know the rather obvious inspiration for the title to this article!).

Mike thanked Robert for uncovering and passing on the cards. "I have so few relicts of old pictures and letters," he wrote, "that each one is a treasure for me." In response to my question about Gladys Cameron, he was able to shed some light and share a delightful family tale, but was not able to solve the mystery: "The cards were written by my grandfather when he was serving with the Red Cross in Europe near the end of and just after WWI. He started his tour in France and then moved on to Budapest to help them reorganize their rail system.… Given Gladys's connection with the Red Cross, she must have known my grandfather when they were in France…My grandmother was not a nurse—she was a telephone operator. That is how she and Michael Garnett met. In those days you connected first to the operator and she would connect to your desired number. My grandfather wanted to meet the "girl with sunshine in her voice."

Please Help Find Gladys!
So we're left with a partial success story. I continue to seek Gladys and have found several contenders, the most promising of whom was also living in Chicago after the war. This Gladys was born circa. 1895 in Idaho, and I thought I had found her sons (also in California), but when I spoke to one, he said his mother had never worked as a nurse. Robert had already contacted the American Red Cross when he wrote to me, and they were apparently unable to help, so that avenue of research has already been explored.

That's why I'm asking for your help. The Ancestry Daily News has a substantial readership. Just maybe someone reading these words had a grandmother or aunt or cousin named Gladys Cameron who served as a nurse in WWI. If so, please contact me so we can complete this rescue! And as always, feel free to e-mail with brief descriptions of orphan heirlooms (e.g., photos, Bibles, documents, etc.) you've come across for possible rescues for future articles. Unfortunately, I can't find rightful owners for every item, but each one has a very special meaning to the family that receives it, so let's keep trying!

Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, author of Honoring Our Ancestors (HOA), In Search of Our Ancestors, and They Came to America, can be contacted through her website, www.honoringourancestors.com . Resources for rescuing orphan photos can also be found on this site, as can information about Megan's monthly HOA grants. Those familiar with the rescue efforts of Marge Rice can track her progress courtesy of the Marge-O-Meter on Megan's website.

Copyright 2003, MyFamily.com.

Upcoming Events
In upcoming months, Megan will be at:
--- Family History Fair
(12 October 2003, New York City)
--- New York Genealogical & Biographical Society
(14 October 2003, New York City)
--- College of William & Mary Bookstore (Barnes & Noble)
(28 November 2003, Williamsburg, Va.)
--- NGS Gentech04
(22-24 January 2004, St. Louis, Mo.)
--- Indiana Genealogical Society Annual Conference
(3 April 2004, Bloomington, Ind.)
--- Ohio Genealogical Society
(22-24 April 2004, Wilmington, Ohio)
--- Westchester County Genealogical Society
(8 May 2004, Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.)
--- Central Jersey Genealogical Club
(11 May 2004, Mercerville, N.J.)
--- Ontario Genealogical Society Seminar 2004
(28-30 May 2004, Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

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