Bernice Myrtle McDeavitt
Grace E. McDeavitt
Orrie T. McDeavitt
Faye Rebecca McDeavitt
Grace E. McDeavitt
These photographs were found loose and mixed with many others in Longview, Texas. There didn't seem to be a connection at first. They were different formats, shapes, sizes.
Then I noticed a couple names repeated on the backs. On one:Ida, Grace, Orrie and Faye. On another: Faye and Grace McDeavitt. With these names I began building the Ancestry.com tree at the top of the page and discovered that Ida, Orrie and Gene were related too. On the fifth photograph the back included the name George McDeavitt and that tied all five photographs together. But the names Bertha Wimer and Jayne Gahagan seemed unconnected.
I posted all five photographs on Flickr. A short time later, Puzzlemaster discovered the connection with the other names noted on the reverse sides.
From puzzlemaster:
Google searching on the names Gahagan and McDeavitt led me to this excellent genealogy, from which all of the following is derived.
The key seems to be the large family of Isaac C. and Margaret Jane Robinson Wimer of Butler Co PA. The Wimers were connected to the McDeavitts in multiple ways across the generations, for instance, Margaret Jane Robinson Wimer's sister Ida, married a McDeavitt.
This photo and it's legend have more to do with four of Isaac and Margaret Wimer's daughters.
First of all, I believe the adult woman in the photo is Bertha Wimer, Isaac and Margaret Jane's youngest daughter, born 1904 and died in 1923.
The child is likely Jane M Gahagan, daughter of Raymond G. Gahagan and Mary Blanche Wimer, Isaac and Elizabeth's seventh child. Jane was born about 1920.
Isaac and Margaret Wimer also had two daughters who married McDeavitts:
Elmeda "Meda" Wimer (b 1894), Isaac and Margaret Jane's fifth child, married "Bert" McDeavitt,
Elizabeth Wimer (b 1888), Isaac and Margaret Jane's third child, married
Robert E McDeavitt, a son of John Henry and Eleanor McDeavitt and brother to Faye and Grace McDeavitt, pictured elsewhere (see above).
The Margaret mentioned on the back of the photo may be a daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Wimer McDeavitt who was born in 1918 and died in 1923, according to gravestone records.
George, and how the pictures ended up in Texas, continue to be a mystery.
So to recap. if I am right, the photo represents baby Jane Gahagan, aged about 2 perhaps, with her 17 or 18 year old aunt, Bertha Wimer around the year 1922, probably in West Liberty, Butler Co, PA.
Here are six additional photographs that might be connected to the above family. These have no identification on them but they were found in the same batch and seem about the same age.
All of the family lineage that I have discovered so far, is based in Pennsylvania, much of it around Butler County, Pennsylvania. The two open questions remain: Who is George McDeavitt and how is he connected to this tree?
And most mysterious: How did these photographs end up in Longview, Texas?
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THE KIDS 
It is always a mystery how a photograph of any of these precious children could end up lost or abandoned. Here are a few. You will probably say "Ooh..." at least once.
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Can I Say,The Way That You Display Your Photos & Info Does Both Them & You Much Justice!Nice One!
ReplyDeleteThanks very much. This one was a hard one to assemble. It is a huge family with many branches. Reducing the tree to a size that would fit on the page and still include everyone mentioned in the photographs was an exercise. I had a lot of help from Puzzlemaster too.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'll turn up a descendant.
Hello! I stumbled across this today and Faye Rebecca McDeavitt is my grandmother! She married Paul Frederick Book. I am sitting with my mother (Faye & Paul's daughter), Esther Anne Book Williams, age 85, showing her this wonderful site that you assembled with these photos. She is delighted to see photos of her mother and beloved aunts and uncles that she had never before seen! Thank you so much! We are puzzled as well as to how these surfaced in Longview, TX. We are still residents of western Pennsylvania. West Liberty in Butler County, Pennsylvania is where much of my mother's family lived and many are buried in the tiny cemetery there. We live roughly 35 miles north of West Liberty in Mercer County. My mother's cousin, Bertha Stewart, daughter of Robert and Elizabeth McDeavitt (my mom's Uncle Bob and Aunt Lizzy), is still living near Slippery Rock, PA and my mother believes she was named after her aunt Bertha Wimer, sister of Elizabeth McDeavitt. My mother is very well acquainted with her family lineage and has many stories of her large extended family, but not once was there ever mention of a George McDeavitt. We would love to learn more about the circumstances surrounding these photos and hope that you would consider sending us some copies. Please feel free to contact me at sreaver@verizon.net.
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