One of the first rules of genealogy is to start with what you know. That’s all well and good until you are researching and documenting your recent ancestors’ lives and you find that the documentation doesn’t match what you know. I know that my grandfather, Robert Theodore Kiggins,was born on 5 July 1906 to Theodore (Dora) and Susie Eiche Kiggins but the birth record dated 1 June 1906 at the Allen County Ohio courthouse shows that Robert S. Kiggins was born on 15 February 1906 to Dora and Sue Eich Kiggins. What?? Were there two boys born in 1906 in Delphos, Ohio with the first name Robert to parents with the names Dora and Susie (Sue) Eich(e) Kiggins? That’s improbable but not impossible. At least there’s no conflict regarding the year Bob Kiggins was born.
Let’s look at how I know what I know. I know Grandpa was born on July 5th because we always celebrated his birthday with a cookout, often in the backyard of the home he shared with Grandma (Detoh) Kiggins on Euclid Street in Delphos. The 1910, 1930 and 1940 U.S. Federal Censuses also show that he was born between April 1906 and April 1907 which would exclude the February 1906 date. His Social Security death record and World War II draft card list Robert T. Kiggins as being born 5 July 1906.
How else can I document what I know to be true? I have requested a copy of Grandpa’s Social Security application but that takes months to receive. To my knowledge, there is no family Bible from the early 1900’s where his birth was recorded. There is one other way though–through a delayed or corrected birth record. When people in the United States started applying for a Social Security number in the late 1930’s, they had to have proof of their birth date and place. If their birth had not been recorded, or if the record was incomplete or contained errors, they had to go to court with two witness statements and other documents attesting to the facts of their birth. The court would then issue them a corrected or delayed birth certificate which they could then use for Social Security. Since Grandpa’s death record shows the correct birthdate then he had to have had a corrected/delayed certificate! Due to courthouse repairs and the corona virus, I can’t access the birth (or marriage) records in Allen County myself but I have sent an email request. Hopefully they will find the records soon so I can prove what I know…
I recently read an article from a 1915 Ohio newspaper that illustrates the plight of women at that time. The woman in the article had divorced her husband because he regularly took off and left her and their three children ages 8, 5 and 3 with nothing while he went to a nearby city and partied with some shady characters for weeks at a time. After totally abandoning his family, he got involved with some questionable dealings that landed him in the Mansfield reformatory. The woman had been receiving a mother’s pension provided for prisoners’ wives but, as required by law, that all stopped when her divorce was final. The legislature at the time wanted to discourage divorce; so, no matter what the circumstances, if a woman wanted to continue receiving aid she had to stay married to the inmate. Keep in mind that there was no Aid for Dependent Children or daycare then, and there were few good paying jobs for women. The writer of the article concluded that the woman had no choice but to either leave the children and go to work or have them taken away and placed in a state institution.
The above events happened over one hundred years ago but I don’t think many in the younger generation realize that life was quite different for women as recently as their mothers’ lifetime. Girls had to wear dresses to school until the mid-70’s. Women couldn’t have credit cards in their own name–or have any at all if they were divorced. Men made all the medical decisions for their wives. In the 1980’s, a college professor told our class that women were going to be the death of pharmacy because we were all going to get married and become “barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen”. It was during that time that I placed a bumper sticker on the back of my first car boldly proclaiming “I’m a Woman. I Can Handle It”. Although I wasn’t as radical as some, I do believe in equal opportunity and education for women, and I expect every woman to receive the same pay as a man for doing the same job. Growing up during the days of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the ’60’s and ’70’s definitely influenced the way I think about myself. It can also influence the way I look at my female ancestors, both positively and negatively.
In the genealogy world, “presentism” seems to be a buzz word right now. Basically, it means judging our ancestors by the customs and conventions of today. Maybe your ancestor was slaveholder. To him it was the norm but now we justifiably consider it barbaric. One place where presentism comes into play for me is when I look at the lives of several of my maternal ancestors. For example, it appears that my great-grandmother Fannie Fern Shough was very pregnant with my great aunt Marie when she moved to Illinois and married Noah Linthicum at 17. She was widowed at 20 and had two illegitimate daughters, my grandma Golda and great aunt Pearl, back in Ohio before her second marriage to Charles Bonham at 25. If I looked at her life through my 2020 glasses I would ask why Great-Grandma Fannie didn’t get a job and support herself and her child instead of putting herself a the position that resulted in her having more illegitimate children. I might not see that the only skills that she had were those of a wife and mother which weren’t necessarily marketable at the turn of the century. Women with children didn’t work outside the home and remarrying as quickly as possible was considered the best solution. At points in Grandma Fannie’s life she probably made hard choices simply to ensure that her children had food in their bellies and a roof over their heads. Maybe she was promised marriage but it never happened. We’ll probably never know but we do know that the stigma of illegitimacy followed the family even down to her grandchildren.
Marie, Golda and Fannie Shough Linthicum c. 1899
On the positive side, I have great respect for my paternal great-grandma, Susie Eiche Kiggins, for earning a high school diploma back in 1896, especially when I look over my 2020 glasses to learn that that only 5-6% of people her age accomplished that feat. Even further back, her mother Sarah Jane Harpster Eiche received a multiplication table “memorial of respect” from her teacher in 1857. I’ve come to believe that these women are my kindred spirits, especially my twice great-grandma Sarah Jane. If you believed the stereotype that it was unusual for a girl to be good at math and science in the late 1970’s, imagine how odd they would have considered such skills over 160 years ago!
Susie Eiche Kiggins’s diploma from Delphos High School 1896Sarah Jane Harpster Eiche’s multiplication table memorial of respect 1857
All of my ancestor’s stories as well as the one in the newspaper article occurred before women in the United States gained the right to vote in 1920. The battle for equality for women is an ongoing crusade worldwide, and we dare not forget that our strong female ancestors did the best they could for their families and themselves for the times in which they lived.
(A side note: If you want to learn more about the fight for women’s right to vote, particularly in Great Britain, I recommend the movie “Suffragette” and the short story “The Suffragette’s Secret” by genealogical crime mystery author Nathan Dylan Goodwin.)
Amongst the joys and celebrations of Christmas, some families are remembering a devastating loss. During our Christmas celebrations in the home of my mom’s sister Alice Marie Lamb Ritzler, she always mentioned losing their daddy, Maurice Lamb, during the holiday season many years before. My mom was only 2 years old when Grandpa Lamb died. As the result of the timing of his death and the fact that she and Grandma usually didn’t have a home of their own, Santa Claus didn’t come to visit Mom. Her sister Alice always made up for it by making sure Mom had something special.
Eighty years ago on December 20, 1939, Maurice Erwood Lamb, my maternal grandfather, died from post-operative pneumonia in his right lung in White Cross Hospital in Columbus, Oho. Two days before, on December 18th, Grandpa had undergone a sub-occipital craniectomy to remove a hemangioma in the drainage canal in his brain. A hemangioma is a benign vascular tumor that is made up of a collection of dilated blood vessels that form a lesion. The tumor was removed successfully by Dr. Harry E. Le Fever but two days later Grandpa Lamb died from pneumonia which was a common complication of anesthesia at that time.
Uncle Walter Lamb had searched for the best neurologist to perform delicate brain surgery on his brother Maurice. Dr. Le Fever was the founder of the Division of Neurological Surgery at The Ohio State University in 1932. He studied abroad in Paris and was frequently published in medical journals in the United States. I searched the journals to see if Dr. Le Fever had published a case study about Grandpa Lamb’s tumor removal but I couldn’t find one. An interesting side note is that Dr. Le Fever’s father, who was also a physician, thought that his son shouldn’t concentrate on just neurosurgery but instead practice general surgery as was the custom of the time.
Maurice Lamb (24 Feb 1895 – 20 Dec 1839) was a lifelong farmer who was only 44 when he died. He was survived by Golda Washington Linthicum, his wife of 25 years and his children Alice Marie Lamb Ritzler, Marvin E. Lamb, Reva Arvene Lamb and my mom. Their daughter, Lydia Pearl Lamb, preceded him in death. Grandpa Lamb was buried in McDonald Fairview cemetary in Hardin County, Ohio.
The song Grandma Golda Linthicum Lamb wrote for her husband Maurice Lamb’s funeral.Grandpa Lamb’s Death Certificate
Maurice Lamb’s obituary that appeared in the Lima News December 21, 1939
It was 1845 when first boat traveled up the Miami Erie Canal through the four towns that would come together to form the town of Delphos, Ohio. The area was settled starting in 1832 by German settlers including Ferdinand Bredeick then his brother Father John Otto Bredeick, and was designated as Section Ten of the canal. The communities of Section Ten, Howard, West Bredeick and East Bredeick became Delphos in 1851. My Kiggins, Eiche, Swick and Loy ancestors are among those who have roots in Delphos.
Leonard Eiche (1845-1907) married Sarah Jane Harpster (1843-1923) on 18 November 1863 in Allen County, Ohio, and left the following May to serve in the 151st Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War. Leonard served 100 days in 1864 and nearly six months in 1865. (I recently ordered Leonard Eiche’s Civil War pension file from the National Archives so in 3 to 4 months I may know even more about their lives during that time.) After the war was over, Leonard and Sarah Jane lived in Monroe Township in Allen County and by 1880 they owned a home on South Pierce Street in Delphos. There they raised 10 children: Thomas, Charles, William, Inza Estella, Frank, Mary Jane, Sarah Anna, Elizabeth, Susie (my great grandmother) and Lewis. Leonard worked as a carpenter. Leonard’s father Sebastian Eiche along with his grandparents, Sebastian and Barbara, and his aunts, Rosanna and Magdaline, emigrated from Germany in 1832.
The Eiche’s were quite an interesting bunch. Susie Eiche Kiggins graduated from high school when it was uncommon for boys let alone girls to go beyond 8th grade, and her partially blind nephew, Alvin “Carl” Eiche, served as the mayor of Delphos. The Eiche girls were characters and were known as the “Difficult Harpsters”. Sarah Jane Harpster Eiche had strings tied around her sidewalk so kids wouldn’t stray into her property.
As a side note, I’d like to thank my cousins Lynn and Suzanne for sharing stories and correcting me when necessary. I’m sharing information as I find it so it doesn’t always stand up to the genealogical standard of proof before it’s written here. In fact, a lot of the stories never will be proven but they are the part of the family history that fills in the spaces between the dry facts!
The Eiche Sisters Goofing Around Sarah Anna Eiche Brenneman, Inza Eiche Downing, Mary Jane Eiche Kane, Susie Eiche KigginsThe Leonard & Sarah Jane Eiche Family Seated: Lewis Eiche, Thomas Eiche, Leonard Eiche, Elizabeth Eiche Rusler, Sarah Jane Harpster Eiche, Inza Eiche Downing, Susie Eiche Kiggins Standing: William Eiche, Leonard Eiche, Mary Jane Eiche Kane, Frank Eiche, Sarah Anna Eiche
The Scioto Marsh in Hardin County, Ohio is the site of a former glacial lake. The “Marsh”, as the area is still referred to, was drained in the 1880’s leaving flat fertile land consisting of peat material. In the first part of the 20th century, the Marsh was home to large fields from which migrant workers from southeastern Kentucky along with locals harvested bountiful crops of mostly onions. The peat is a dark muck that holds the summer heat causing some workers to wrap their arms and legs in cloth wrappings to keep from being burned. It is also flammable, and in 1914 the peat caught fire damaging nearly 100 acres.
My connection to the Marsh/Hardin County area started with my twice great-grandparents, Anson Lamb (1827-1874) and Rebecca Woolley Lamb (1834-1912) who were married in 1851 in Union County, Ohio and lived in Dudley Township, Hardin County, Ohio by 1870. Anson was listed as a common laboror in the census that year. Anson and Rebecca’s son Marion Lamb (1857-1929) was working as a farm hand in McDonald Township, Hardin County, Ohio when he married Laura Emmaline “Emma” Smith (1861-1925) on 19 February 1881. They bought land in 1886 and again in 1898 and raised their family of 8 boys and a set of twin girls on their farm on McGuffey Belle Center Pike south of McGuffey in McDonald Township. My mother has a piece of the wood siding taken from the farm before it was torn down.
Eugene, Maurice, Walter and Earl Lamb weeding onions on the Marsh.
Marion and Emma Smith Lamb 1918
Marion and Emma’s son Maurice Erwood “Mart” Lamb (1895-1939) and his wife Golda Washington Linthicum (1898-1973) were my grandparents. Grandma was only 16 when they were married on 11 April 1914. Maurice and Golda had 5 children, Alice Marie Lamb Ritzler (1914-2004), Marvin E. Lamb (1916-2007), Reva Arvene Lamb Raver (1918-1942), Lydia Pearl Lamb (1920-1922) and my mother, Sally Yvonne Lamb Kiggins (1937). When the older three children were young, Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Marvin worked on the Marsh in the onion fields. Aunt Alice was left at home to keep the house and cook while they worked. Aunt Reva was a “sickly” child so she probably didn’t work in the fields. Grandpa later farmed the Lamb home place on McGuffey Belle Center Pike.
Lamb Home Place McGuffey Belle Center Pike in McDonald Township, Hardin County, Ohio
A large portion of northwest Ohio, including Delphos, lies in the area that was part of the Black Swamp. The land was once covered in deep swamps and dense forests. Once it was drained using a system of ditches in the mid to late 1800’s, farmers started taking advantage of the fertile clay soil. James Kiggins Sr. (1819-1895) owned 380 acres east of Delphos in Marion Township, Allen County by 1860. His farm produced wheat, rye, indian corn and oats as well as wool. James Sr. and his wife Mercy Clawson Kiggins (1819-1884) were married on 19 Nov 1837 and had 8 children: Elizabeth (1839-1904), Josiah (1840-1928), Lewis (1842-1871), Alexander (1845-1927), Jane (1847-1927), Rosanna (1848-1930) and James Jr. (1851-1939). In the 1880 census, James Sr. and Mercy’s children James Jr., Alex and Josiah lived near them in Marion Township with their families. It appears that the land was sold to pay James Sr.’s debts upon his death in 1895 but Kiggins Road still marks the general location.
James Kiggins Jr. & Elmira Frances Bryan Kiggins
My branch comes off the Kiggins tree at James Jr and his wife Elmira Frances Bryan Kiggins (1854-1926). James Jr. was a farmer like his father. Their son Theodore McClellan Kiggins (1879-1963) was my great-grandfather. Grandpa Dora (door-ee), as he was called, and Grandma Tude (Susie Eiche Kiggins (1878-1967)) had two children, Margaret Kiggins Imber (1902-1977) and my grandfather Robert Theodore “Bob” Kiggins (1906-1980). Theodore was a teamster who used big draft horses and wagon to haul lumber for the Delphos Bending Works, a local business that made children’s furniture, rocking horses and toys. He also farmed land around their home on Euclid Street, which at that point was on the edge of Delphos.
James Kiggins Jr. Family circa 1924 Front: James Kiggins Jr., Pauline Kiggins, Elmira Bryan Kiggins Back: William “Will” Kiggins, ??, ??, Cora Kohn Kiggins, Martha “Mattie” Kiggins, Susie “Tude” Eiche Kiggins, Robert “Bob” Kiggins, Lucy Kiggins, Margaret Kiggins, Theodore “Dora” Kiggins
Theodore Kiggins, Margaret Kiggins, Susie Eiche Kiggins & Robert Kiggins
Theodore and Susie Eiche Kiggins home on Euclid Street, Delphos, Ohio
First of all, I should warn you that I’m a talker not a writer. The gift of writing was passed from my paternal grandfather Robert Kiggins to my cousin and my daughter but not to me. My purpose in starting this family history blog is to tell the stories that I find as I discover my ancestors and learn about their lives.
I can’t pinpoint when my interest in family history began. Maybe it was when I listened to my grandmas’ stories as a child, or it might have been when I was handed a manilla envelope full of genealogy research that a distant cousin sent to my paternal grandmother Detoh Swick Kiggins in the 1980’s. Regardless, I have always felt a strong sense of family identity. My parents are respected members of our small community who are beloved by many. Being one of the “Kiggins girls” is how my sisters’ and I continue to be recognized even as we reach middle age.
Why “The Swamp, the Marsh and the Canal”? Many of my ancestors in the last five generations have lived in or near the Black Swamp, the Scioto Marsh or the Miami Erie Canal in Ohio. The ancestors of my paternal grandparents have lived in the Black Swamp area since the mid 1800’s. James Kiggins Sr. and Mercy Clawson Kiggins were in Marion Township in Allen County Ohio by 1860 and Peter Swick and Rebecca Simpson Swick settled there 10 years earlier. Leonard Eiche and Sarah Jane Harpster Eiche and John Loy and Catherine Parker Loy lived in Delphos, Ohio by 1880. My maternal second great-grandparents, Anson Lamb and Rebecca Woolley Lamb were living in Hardin County Ohio by 1870 and many of their descendents lived on or near the Scioto Marsh there. The Miami Erie Canal forms the boundary between Allen and Van Wert County through Delphos and my patriot ancestor, Lewis Boyer, lived near where it flows through Miami County in the Piqua, Ohio area. My sisters and I also grew up along the canal which provided year-round entertainment.
My paternal great-grandparents Theodore Kiggins & Susie Eiche Kiggins of Delphos, Ohio
Along my family history journey, I will add more photos and stories of my ancestors as I find them. I would absolutely love it if we could share! Please contact me with any information or questions.
The Swamp, the Marsh and the Canal 