Wordless Wednesday: Betty Jewel Lane

My Mom
Betty Jewel Lane Lee, daughter of William Bowman Lane & Martha A. Pierce Lane
c. 1943

Edith Naoma Lane

Edith Naoma Lane

This is my favorite photo of my Aunt Edie. I love the huge smile on her face! Number 3 of William and Martha Pierce Lane's children, Edith Naoma was born on March 24, 1908, in Clairfield, Tennessee. By the time she was two, she and the family were living in nearby Anthras. Papaw was working in the coal mines, and Granny was taking care of three young children.

In 1925, when Edith was only 16 or 17 years old, she eloped with Clarence D. Mayes who was ten years her senior.  They remained in Claiborne County, Tennessee, where both of their families lived.  Clarence worked as a coal miner and Edith was a housewife.  All this information is verified in the 1930 United States Federal Census.  What I can't verify are the elopement stories told my mom, Betty, and my aunt, Ruth, Edith's younger sisters.  My grandmother would have been pregnant with my mom, and Aunt Ruth would have been only eight years old when Edith and Clarence eloped.  Both, however, often told stories about the night Edith snuck out of the house and met Clarence, and of how the two of them ran off through the fields, climbing over fences and rocks while my papaw yelled after them to stop.

Edith Lane with her second husband, Earl

Sisters Ruth and Edith Lane

At some point after 1930, Edith and Clarence divorced, and Aunt Edie moved to Cincinnati.  My mom often talked of visiting her big sister in the city and of what fun that was.  Aunt Edie would marry two more times.  Her second husband, named Earl, I know very little about.  Her third husband was Herbert William (Bill) Janssen who was born in Holland in 1899.  Bill had been married previously as well and had a son, Eric.  Aunt Edith never had any children of her own.

Aunt Edith and Uncle Bill eventually settled in Florida, and Bill passed away there in 1980.  Edith remained in Florida for a while, but shortly after my Uncle Nolan died, she moved to Middlesboro, Kentucky, to be close to her sisters, Betty and Ruth.  My cousin and Edith's niece, Betty Jo McManaway, moved Aunt Edie into her home in Harrogate, Tennessee, and took care of her when it became difficult for Edie to live by herself.  Edith died, according to her death certificate, of an "acute cerebral infection" on June 11, 1992, at age 84.

Edith Lane Janssen

Sources:

1930 United States Federal Census
Tennessee Delayed Birth Records, 1869-1909
New York Naturalization Records, 1897-1944
Commonwealth of Kentucky Certificate of Death #15409

Family Recipe Friday: Betty's Fried Corn

Betty Lane Lee's Recipe for Fried Corn

FOUND--the recipe my mom used to make her fried corn!  I knew how Mom made fresh fried corn, but I never knew she had an actual recipe for it.  While looking through one of her old cookbooks this week, I found this index card with a recipe from a newspaper taped to it.  This is indeed how she made it, and it was yummy!  Just thinking about Mom's fried corn reminds me of summer suppers in the mountains, and that's a sweet memory to relish on this icy February morning in the Bluegrass.

The old newspaper clipping is difficult to read, so here's a transcription of the recipe:

Fried Corn

6 to 8 medium ears of tender corn

1/2 C. bacon drippings

1 C. milk or cream

1 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

Cut kernels from cob. Scrape the ear to remove all the milk.  Have skillet very hot; add bacon drippings and corn.  Let the corn crust but not burn.  Stir constantly for five minutes, until thick.  Add milk or cream.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cover and let simmer for 15 minutes or until thick.  Serves 4-6.

Betty Lane Lee & Frank Welch Lee in their kitchen
Middlesboro, Kentucky, c. 1980

Mom would use an iron skillet, and I know she used more than 1/8 tsp. of pepper and probably more salt than the recipe calls for.  My dad would hope for Hickory Cane corn--his favorite.  He would often get it from friends and customers who would visit his drug store, Lee's, in downtown Middlesboro, Kentucky.

Family Recipe Friday: Betty's Cornbread (via Martha Pierce Lane)

Cornbread was a staple in our house when I was growing up, and my mom's cornbread was delicious.  She always used the recipe below which she said was dictated to her by her mother, Martha Pierce Lane, in the early 1950s.  The recipe was written on a 3 x 5 inch index card by my mom.  In parentheses to the right of each ingredient is the amount of that ingredient needed should you want to double the recipe.  These were written by my dad, Frank W. Lee, because he got tired of telling mom how to add fractions every time she made a big batch of cornbread!  (Like me, mom was "mathematically challenged," and she hated fractions.)

Betty Jewel Lane's Cornbread Recipe, c. 1950

Mom always used a cast iron skillet when she made cornbread.  She would grease the skillet with bacon drippings (which she kept in a can by the stove), and then she would put the skillet in the oven to warm while the oven was preheating.  "This gives your cornbread a nice crispy crust," she always said.

While I don't have mom's iron skillet, I do still have a couple of the other items she used when mixing up a batch of cornbread.  The measuring spoons have lost their luster, and the old Pyrex bowl shows wear from years stirring, but I wouldn't want them any other way.  I use them, too, when making cornbread for my family, and I think of her every time.

Betty Lane's Mixing Bowl, Measuring Cup, and Measuring Spoons, c. 1960

Betty Lane's Well-Worn Mixing Bowl, c. 1960

Family Group Sheet for William Bowman Lane

Today I want to share the Family Group Sheet that I've created for the William Bowman Lane family in Family Tree Maker 2012 software.  One of my favorite things about this software is the way it syncs with my Ancestry.com account.  Each time I open my Family Tree Maker, all the research I've saved on Ancestry automatically downloads and organizes itself onto my Family Tree Maker.  Sources, photos, information--everything can be shared between these two sites.  These have been really helpful tools for me as I research my family history.  Also, I LOVE the options on Family Tree Maker that allow users to create various genealogy reports such as the following family group sheet about my mom, her parents, and her siblings.

Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness

Resolution for 2013:  Practice and Promote Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness. 
As an amateur genealogist, I know what a treat it is to find another piece of the family puzzle.  Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) is not new, nor is it my creation.  Much of the credit for this movement should probably be given to Bridgett and Doc Schneider who established the RAOGK website several years ago and created a network for volunteers around the world to help genealogists find pieces of the their family histories.  From obtaining copies of documents to prove lineage to taking photos of old homesites or tombstones, these volunteers provided a valuable service.  The RAOGK website was a way to match requests to volunteers.  The website ceased to exist, however, in 2011 when administrator Bridgett Schneider passed away.  Volunteers have taken up the cause on other sites.  Facebook, for example, has two RAOGK sites--one for requests and offers to help in the U. S. and one for the international community.  Find a Grave also offers an outlet for volunteers to take and share gravesite photos in their communities with those requesting them.  Ancestry has a project going called The Ancestry World Archives Project in which volunteers can work from their home computers and transcribe records so they can be placed online for researchers to access.  Many other opportunities to offer help to genealogists exist online and in local communities.  Wouldn't it be great if more of us shared a bit of our time and resources to help others complete their family histories?  That's what I hope to do this year, and I want to share some ideas and opportunities about how to do so on this blog.  Following is my first random act of genealogical kindness for 2013.  Sometimes merely sharing what you have in your own family history will mean so much to someone else.

Recently, when I decided to create this blog, I pulled out of the closet a couple of old scrapbooks that my mom, Betty Jewel Lane, kept when she was a teenager and young adult in the 1940s and early 1950s.  What fun to see mom with her friends and family when she was a young girl!  The clothes she wore, her hairstyles, the places she visited, even her handwriting throughout the scrapbooks, all gave me insight as to who she was and what life was like then.

Photo Albums  Created by Betty Jewel Lane, c. 1940s and 1950s

Inside Pages of Photo Album (above right) Created by Betty Jewel Lane

Many of the photos in the albums are of the same pretty young woman and are labeled in my mom's handwriting as "Lu" or "Lunetta."  I remember my mom talking about Lu and what good friends they were when they were young.

Betty Jewel Lane (r) and best friend Lu, c. 1945

I also remember Mom saying how much Lu adored her son and how close they were.  Well, Lu's son and I went to high school together, too, but we weren't close, and it has been years since I've seen him or even heard anything about him.  Still, shouldn't these photos and memories of Lu be shared with her family?  So, I turned to Facebook.  I quickly found Lu's son there, and sent him a private message about the treasures I have to share.  Was he interested?  Oh, yes!  Maybe even more so because his mother passed away just a few months ago.  So my project this week is to scan the photos of Lu in mom's scrapbooks and burn them onto a photo CD for her son.  I'll be mailing that CD to him next week along with some of the original photos of his mom.

Have you performed any random acts of genealogical kindness?  I'd love to hear about them!  If you'd like to share your story, please do so in the comment section below or contact me by email at bsouthworth@windstream.net.  Thanks!

Betty Jewel Lane (1926-1992)

Red hair, blue eyes, an easy laugh, and sometimes a fiery temper, Betty Jewel Lane was the youngest of William Bowman Lane and Martha Pierce Lane's eight children.  My mom was born in Pruden, Tennessee, where her daddy worked as a coal miner and where the family lived in a company-owned house beside the railroad tracks.

Betty Jewel Lane (r) and her nephew Billy Schooler
Pruden, Tennessee, c. 1932

Her siblings were Gladys, Leland, Edith, Jessie, Nolan, Roy, and Ruth.  Mom always said that even though they were a poor family, they were happy.  Mom adored her parents and her brothers and sisters, and she was especially close to Gladys, who helped raise her, and to Nolan and Ruth.  With her family, she later moved to Lafollette, Tennessee, where she graduated from high school, and then to Middlesboro, Kentucky.

Betty Jewel Lane, c. 1945
Lafollette (TN) High School

In Middlesboro, Mom worked as a clerk in Lee's Drug Store where she met my dad, Frank Welch Lee.  They married in 1959, and I came along in 1961.  They also had another child, my little brother, Frank Lewis Lee II, who was born in 1962.  It was a difficult birth and my brother died when he was only two days old.  I don't think Mom ever really got over the loss of my brother, but I do think she loved being my mom.





1959 Marriage Announcement of
Betty Jewel Lane and Frank Welch Lee



Just Married, August 5, 1959
Betty Jewel Lane and Frank Welch Lee
Rose Hill, Virginia

When I started first grade, Mom, at the age of 40, started college.  Four years later, she graduated magna cum laude from Lincoln Memorial University with a major in sociology.  She worked for a number of years as a social worker in Bell County, Kentucky.  Mom passed away much too soon in 1992 from acute plasma cell leukemia.

Betty Lane Lee, 1971
Graduation from Lincoln Memorial University
Harrogate, Tennessee

Mom was a voracious reader, she loved to play golf, and she was an avid Tennessee Vols fan.  She liked to talk, she laughed until she cried when watching Steve Martin's movie The Jerk, and she hated people who acted as if they were better than others. What I remember most about Mom, however, is how much she genuinely liked people.  She especially loved being around young people, always welcoming my friends and our neighbors into our home.  She was fiercely loyal to her family and her friends, and she was so proud of her heritage.  So I dedicate this blog to my beautiful mother, and I look forward finding out about my Lane family roots.  I also look forward to hearing from anyone who wants to connect and share information about our family.

Betty Jewell Lane, c. 1945