JANUARY 1997 NEWSLETTER
It is a small world and getting smaller all the time. I have an interesting story to relate regarding the AMICK line. As you know we have traced many hundreds of the descendants of John AMICK who was the father of Mary AMICK. Mary was the first wife of Henry MOWER Sr.
One of the lines I worked on a couple of years ago was the line of Mary's brother, Samuel AMICK. His descendants stayed in Bedford County, Pennsylvania and that made following them easier. I got to about 1890 and had to stop that line. I also did not have death dates for many of them. So that branch of the family has been left alone for several years now.
Several weeks ago I received a phone call from Judsonia, Arkansas. The lady on the phone introduced herself and asked if I was her history teacher. Well, I have taught history and been in administration for 24 years now, so I said I might be her teacher. She then told me her maiden name and sure enough, it was a former student, now married and living in Arkansas. It was nice to renew old acquaintance, but that is not why she was calling.
Her married name now was GUNNOE and she had felt a desire to do family history work on her husband's line. She was now was feeling "the pull" to do genealogy.
She went to her local family history branch library and looked up her husband's line. One of his grandfathers was named Joseph AMICK. Sure enough she found him listed in the Ancestral file. She wanted to see who submitted the information on her husband's grandfather and to her surprise--- Jerry Mower of Bedford, Wyoming was listed.
She said: "I though to myself, could this be my history teacher? How many Jerry Mowers can there be--- especially in Star Valley, Wyoming?" So she phoned. Yes it was her history teacher who is a distant cousin to her husband.
She was excited and I was excited because she said she had additional information on the family which was not listed on the Ancestral file. I asked her if she would send me the information. She did.
I was so pleased when her packet of information arrived. It listed several death dates which I did not have and gave me several families worth of information. The information packet also provided the name of a lost child--- one that I did not know had even been born during the 1880's. This child had only lived a year and had died. Not showing on any census records, death or cemetery records, we did not know that this child had lived.
The family however knew this child had been born and his birth and death had been recorded in the family records. Isn't it interesting.
Two days before Thanksgiving I received an unexpected letter from Terry DIEHL who lives near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is a math teacher who descends from Sarah MOWER, daughter of Andrew MOWER and of course that makes her (Sarah) an aunt to Henry MOWER Sr. That makes Terry our distant cousin.
Terry sent me unexpectedly many family group sheets of his lineage and of MOWER lines in Bedford, Pennsylvania to which I can not prove our relationship. I was able to take the information he sent me and gather about 35 names for temple submission. I had a lot of information on the families he sent me, but what he sent was very valuable and useful.
I sent Terry a copy of Sarah MOWER's ancestry that we have newly learned this year. This included the German ancestry discovered by Trudy SCHENK. I also send him Elizabeth KOLB's ancestry. This will be a great interest to him as he knows nothing of Sarah MOWER's ancestry. He and I have set up a correspondence with each other and we will continue to share information.