As we were clearing out my parents’ home after my father’s passing, I found this among the items my mother had accumulated from her parents’ home. The bowl has no marking as to it’s provenance, but the real treasure is the note that was inside of the bowl, in my grandmother’s handwriting:

It makes the found item so much more valuable.

Aunt Essie, Grandma’s oldest sister, is just a vague memory for me. I only remember of ever seeing her once. Grandma and Grandpa would choose one of the grandsons to accompany them on a trip to Massillon where Aunt Essie and Uncle Harold lived. I went as a very young child as Aunt Essie passed away in January of 1953, when I was just 4 years old.

I knew that Aunt Essie and Uncle Harold had no children – and that Uncle Harold was one of the favorites of my mother’s uncles. When I saw a photo of my grandparents’ wedding eve family gathering, I asked my grandmother to identify the people in the picture. She pointed out Louis Postle. Naturally, I asked who he was. Grandma said he was Aunt Essie’s first husband. WHAT? She explained it was not a good marriage and they were divorced and that Aunt Essie later married Uncle Harold, who happened to also be their first cousin, once removed.

It took some time and research, but I finally received the divorce filing from when Aunt Essie’s divorce was finalized in 1922. And, Grandma was really understating the situation. Between the filing and various newspaper articles in which Louis Kincaid Postle was mentioned, a better picture of what it was like. Louis was not in the area when the divorce was processed. Aunt Essie appeared in a number of Columbus, Ohio. city directories at the same address as her mother, my great-grandmother. There were numerous arrests for Louis for D&D.

Of course, newspapers of the time also reported the comings and goings of the Koontz girls. A number of articles appeared reporting that Essie, always in the company of her younger sister, Ethel, had gone to visit the Spuhler family in Massillon.

#heirlooms #Koontz #genealogy