IN MEMORIAM HONOR ROLL

(Printed in the November 1999 issue of Momentum, as one of a series under the pen name Macavity.)

Carole smiled. She stood up from behind her desk, came around it and shook my hand. Still smiling. The same ambiguous smile she used when facing a jury, listening to a judge, or happily harpooning a legal tactic of mine in a court case.

�How nice, Macavity, to see you somewhere outside of a courtroom. Please,� she waved me over to chairs by a coffee table. �Haven�t been in my office before, have you?�

�Very nice, Carole. It suits you, cool and charming.�

�Ah ha, Macavity! With those words you must really want some. What�s up?�

�It�s about a civil suit you filed recently against one of my clients, a nice little old lady who never harmed anyone.�

�You must mean that aggressive old harridan who needlessly created a public spectacle, which humiliated and embarrassed my innocent client.� She smiled again.

I smiled back, remembering the circumstances outlined in the suit. Her client, one Jonas Hale, had recently registered in the same hotel where my client resided. He was assigned to a room on the same floor. Returning to that floor from an early dinner, he realized he had forgotten his room number. The hotel was using magnetic key cards without room numbers on them, so he couldn�t locate his room from his key card. He thought the number on my client�s door looked familiar. He knocked and when my client opened the door, he apologized, explained his error, and went down the hallway, looking at other room numbers.

Suddenly swarms of uniformed security guards surrounded him. They mercilessly badgered him about his presence on that floor. From them, he learned that my client had called the desk official gave security officers his room number, and his presence there as a guest was verified. But not before the hall became cluttered with other occupants, nosy as well as curious. On his behalf, Carole was asking for personal damages.

�How is it he came to you for representation?�

�I�ve done some legal work for the hotel and when he mentioned getting an attorney, the security people gave him my phone number.�

�Working on a contingency fee?� I asked Carole.

�Of course. That harridan is really loaded! Security tells me she flaunts her jewelry publicly every time she stays there. I expect to do nicely on this one, Macavity.

I shook my head. �You�d castigate this innocent old lady in open court just because she made a little mistake?�

�Little mistake, hell! Without any reason for doing so, she subjected my client to defamation of character, public humiliation, and personal embarrassment. I�m going to make her pay.�

�But only if I can�t produce an acceptable defense, Carole,� I warned her. �Let me tell you what I think really happened. Your client is a master thief. He intended to steal my client�s jewelry, thinking she might be dining somewhere at that hour. Just to make sure, though, he tapped on the door before breaking in. When she opened it, he gave her his cover story. The security people confirmed his story. He�d probably have dropped it there but after he mentioned getting an attorney and they gave him your number, he figured it was safer to follow through than to have them wondering why he didn�t. If you suggest he drop the suit, I think he�d jump at the chance.�

Carole stared at me. �Are you crazy, Macavity? You can�t possibly go into court with that version of what happened. I�d be suing you next on his behalf.�

�I don�t have to tell that story in court. All I have to do is show that my client acted reasonably in reporting your client as a suspicious character. But if I do that in open court, you�ll lose a chance to warn the security people at the hotel about your client. He must have had some inside help to learn about my little old lady flashing her jewelry and what her room number was. The hotel would probably appreciate your tip about him. Might even increase your retainer.�

�Come off it, Macavity! What possible argument could you offer in court that your client acted reasonably?�

Now it was my turn to smile at her. �Ever been in a hotel when you have to leave your room to go down and buy a newspaper or have a drink at the bar? You always take your key with you because the door locks automatically when you leave.�

�So what? My client took his key card with him.�

�And when you try to get back into your room - ?�

(Challenge to readers: This is where you outwit the author. What was going to be Macavity�s defense?)

There was a lengthy pause. Then Carole nodded slowly. �Of course! First you try using your own key to unlock the door. And in court, you�ll be asking why my client didn�t do that?�

�You can bet I�d certainly make a real issue of it. And I�d also raise the question as to why your client knocked instead of trying his key. Perhaps he wanted to know if the room was empty. I think that�s enough to establish my client acted reasonably. As I said earlier, this case had one little mistake, Carole. But it was your client who made it.�

((In the newsletters of March and June 2004 I recounted a narrative of my family�s arrival to the United States, as related by Fannie (Chenoweth) Dorman. Earlier this year I received emails from a previously unknown cousin, Paul Daniel King. He is descended from Mary Louise (Chenoweth) Banta. He had in his possession a copy of the same history as told by Mary Louise. The only problem was that his copy was several pages longer. It also appears that Mary Louise is the true author of the document. And so with that clarification I present, The rest of the story��.)

Our father, John, attended the public school in New York until their return to England. When they came back to New York he was fifteen years of age and his help was needed in supporting the family. He worked with his father learning the trade of cabinet maker, although at times he took other employment as he was able to obtain it. He worked in a picture store and here one of his duties was to buy the meat for his employers table � an experience which enabled him to become an expert in the selection of cuts of meat. He worked for a man making India rubber suspenders for $1.50 a day and later carried on a similar business for himself with the help of his sister Caroline.

At one time the family experienced an epidemic of scarlet fever in severe form. All of the children were very sick and while they all recovered, they were left with some physical weakness. Father�s eyes were weakened and one became crossed. This was such a trial to him, that when his Sunday School teacher, who was a doctor suggested that he might have his eye straightened without expense, he gladly accepted the offer. Without telling his parents, he went to the doctor�s office for the operation, having no idea of the ordeal before him. This doctor called in several other doctors and they experimented on his eyes. With no anesthetic they held him on the table while one cord after another was cut and a discussion carried on among the doctors. His eye was straightened but the sight was almost destroyed and he was obliged to spend two weeks in bed as the result of the shock to his system. Thus he paid for his contribution to the advancement of ocular surgery.

In 1850 he was married to Mary Hall and for two years conducted a furniture business in Starkey, NY, the home of her parents. In 1853 he went back to New York City and worked at his trade when work could be obtained. We have heard him tell the story of how at one time he had been out of work and his savings had reduced until he had only nine cents. With a courage and resourcefulness he displayed many times in his life, he invested his nine cents in pencils and going to a corner near a school he sold them at a hundred per cent profit. Reinvesting his capital he continued his pencil venture until he had developed quite a business. In 1860 he went to work in a hobby horse factory as a skilled workman at three dollars a day. Later he went to Springfield, MA, where he worked on the stocks of the first breach loading shot guns manufactured for the United States Army. His daughter, Fannie, was born in 1858, and son Edward in 1860. In 1862 his wife died. Taking the children to her mother�s, he returned to New York to work at his trade. On November 30, 1864 he was married to Mary Ann Janes in the parsonage of the Pilgrim Baptist Church by Rev. George A. Peltz. Sometime during the years, Father had joined the Baptist church and it was probably there that he became intimately acquainted with Mother, although he used to tease her sometimes about knowing her when she was a small girl just come from England.

Mother was born in Birmingham, England on December 16, 1840. This was not the home of her parents and it was chance that made Birmingham her birthplace. Her parents, Samuel Janes and Mary Dorman Janes, were one among the many young English couples who were married on Queen Victoria�s wedding day, which was February 10, 1840. Their home was at Bright, a ship building port on the southern coast of England. In the fall Samuel went to Scotland to work and in December sent for his wife. It was close to the time for her confinement but she never hesitated about following his suggestion to come at once. She traveled by train and becoming sick on the way got off the train at Birmingham, went to an Inn, summoned a doctor and nurse and there among strangers, she, a girl of twenty, had her first baby. As soon as she was able she continued her journey and joined her husband. Later they returned to Brighton where the other childre, Sam, Grace and Henry were born. Samuel, the father, was a skilled cabinet maker and had no trouble obtaining work. He was a man of strong character, of stern disposition, and a severe disciplinarian with his children. He had been converted to the Baptist faith when Charles Spurgeon was preaching in England, and while exceedingly narrow in his views, he was very strong in his convictions of right and wrong and a very earnest worker in the church. He believed that every member of the family should attend every meeting of the church. If the weather was rainy or stormy they put on their old clothes and went. In 1850 he decided to try his fortune in the new world. Leaving the family in Brighton he sailed for New York where he obtained work and the following year sent for his family. Mother said she was sent to school in England at a very early age � a private school taught by two elderly spinsters � only paupers sent their children to the public school. Here she was taught to sew, knit and crochet, as well as the common school studies and the teaching must have been effective since she was able to enter the New York public schools in the grade with the children of her own age. I remember a lace collar that she had that she said she knit of fine thread, when she was six years old. Before leaving England some relative took the family to London to see the Crystal Palace Exposition which was similar to a World�s Fair and a very outstanding event for those times. English customs were strictly followed in those days. Mother said that shortly before they left England a grandmother died and all the family, including the two-year old baby, were clothed in all black mourning clothes.

The voyage to New York was a pleasant experience for the Janes family. Mother loved it and often said, had she been a boy she would have been a sailor. And this in spite of the fact, that early in the voyage, she fell down one of the hatchways and injured her knee cap so that she was unable to walk during the remainder of the six weeks� voyage. Every day the captain carried her up on deck where she could sit and crochet and watch the waves. This injured knee caused her trouble all of her life, she did not limp but had many falls. In New York City the family were soon located and came to love their new home. In school Mother did very well. I have a report of hers that covers a period of six months in which she had perfect lessons in all subjects for the entire period. There was one school experience which might have proved serious to her � a teacher in one of the rooms fainted and this frightened the children so that they rushed into the hall and some cried fire. The alarm was given throughout the building and the children rushed to the halls and stairs in such a crowd that the stairway gave way. Many children were injured and some killed. Mother had been having an ear infection that made her temporarily deaf, so did not hear the alarm or the children leave the room. Happening to look up she saw the room empty and a fireman at the window. He carried her down the ladder and told her to run home.

To help with the family income her mother did nursing in homes and upon Mary fell the work of the home and the care of the younger children. A meat turnover baked in the morning was the lunch each one took to school. Because she had to care for Henry she took him to school with her when he was only four years old and as her teacher did not want him in the room she persuaded the first grade teacher to take him into her class. He was quick to learn and not only kept up with the class but surpassed the older children. This proved to be a detriment to him for he finished the grade school two years before he was old enough by law to enter high school. Mother was a great reader and a perfect speller. It was quite a game with us children to try to find a word that she could not spell but we never did except a foreign word that she had never seen. She made very few mistakes in grammar and her command of English was unusual for one of her limited education. When she finished the grade school she was very anxious to go to high school but her father had the English idea that every child should be apprenticed to some trade to learn to earn a living, and so sent her to a dressmaker for instruction. Here she not only learned dressmaking but tailoring as well and displayed an aptitude for the work which proved a benefit to her all her life. To show something of her father�s attitude � he found her one day reading Robinson Crusoe which the dressmaker had loaned her. This being a novel was to him a thing of evil. He ordered her to return it and immediately took her away from this shop. In 1858 her mother died and then upon her fell all the responsibility of the home. She went out sewing by the day and did the housework mornings and evenings. Her brother Sam later went out to Indiana to obtain work and shift for himself. Her father was married again in 1861 and then the home was broken up. Mother worked for two years for two Colgate families � brothers in the Colgate soap company. These were wealthy families with country homes on Staten Island and there they equipped a school room and had her teach their children. Her sister Grace also worked in these homes. Later Grace, a girl of sixteen, took her brother Henry, who was twelve, and went out to Indiana to meet her brother Sam and find work and homes. When they arrived they found Sam had enlisted and gone to the war. Undaunted by the fact that she was a stranger among strangers, Grace found work for herself and a home in the country for Henry where the people promised to bring him in town each week that she might know he was being cared for. Grace later returned to New York where she married Frank Cowan. Henry remained with this family until he was grown and was always treated like a son. He later married a girl of the neighborhood, learned to be a telegraph operator and work at this work all his life. He and his wife and three daughters, Edith, Claire and Lucy two came to Ottawa to visit us.

Grandfather Samuel died in 1864. I am afraid I have not been fair to him in this sketch. It is true that he was dictatorial and severe with his children but he was a man of much ability and charm. That he was respected and admired by his associates is shown by this incident. Before his death he working in a shop in an upstate town. All during the months of his illness his fellow workman visited him often and at his death asked the privilege of making his casket and carrying it on their shoulders to the cemetery.

When Mother and Father were married, though she had been working continually, times were hard during Civil War times, and she had no money for wedding finery. Her brother Sam sent her $25 as a wedding gift and with it she bought calico at 40 cents a yard for two dresses and muslin at 50 cents a yard for underwear and these things she made herself. She never would tell us what her wedding dress was like but when I was grown she confessed that she was married in the only good dress she had, a black alpacca.

Father had work in a hobby horse factory, then in a refrigerator factory and later went into business for himself in a furniture repair shop. The first baby named Alice born December 31, 1865 lived only three months. John was born February 1, 1867. A few months later Father was obliged to seek new living quarters for his family which now included three children, Fannie, Ed and baby John. After searching for several days for an apartment and being greeted with the remark that no children were allowed in the building, he decided to move to the West where there would be room for a family. While visiting his brother William, in Newark, he attended a Baptist church at which the preacher of the evening was Rev. Robert Atkinson who was at that time working in the interest of a Baptist college for Indian and white young people at Ottawa, KS. He persuaded Father that Ottawa would be just the place for him to locate since he was a Baptist and Ottawa was founded largely by Baptists and had this fine school where his children could be educated. That was the reason he selected Ottawa as the future home. In the spring of 1868 he sold his household goods deciding, because of high freight rates, they could take nothing with them except their trunks and his chest of tools. Mother begged to take her sewing machine, which they bought but a short time before for $100 and since they were offered but a small fraction of this sum for it, he consented to have it shipped. Mother said it was a fortunate decision for it was one of the very few machines in Ottawa and she was able to earn considerable, stitching articles at the price of five cents a yard.

It was a tiresome trip of four days and nights riding all the way in a day coach with a young baby especially for Fannie who was car sick all the way. Ottawa was then the end of the Santa Fe railroad and was experiencing a boom following the Civil War. After spending three days in a hotel while they hunted for a house. Father rented the lower floor of a small house on East Second street. In the two rooms upstairs Captain and Mrs Hughes lived and the two families were ever afterward close friends. Father obtained work in Mr Volrath�s furniture store making furniture and coffins from native walnut lumber. He found the work very hard as there were no machines for dressing the lumber. By hand he planed the lumber, sawed the parts, fitted them together and then did the sanding, polishing, and varnishing. He made tables, safes, book cases and similar articles. No caskets or coffins were kept in stock. When a death occurred, a relative or neighbor of the deceased brought a stick for the measurement and father made the coffin, lined and trimmed it, often spending the entire night at the work.

A few months after coming to Ottawa baby John was stricken with infantile dysentery and died. During that summer Mother suffered from a siege of chills and fever which lasted many weeks. In the fall of �68 Grace was born.

In 1869 an Indian Reservation, thirty miles west of Ottawa in Osage Co., was opened for settlement and a number of men from Ottawa took homesteads there. Father and Capt Hughes selected adjoining quarter sections. Father built a house, ten feet square on this claim and moved the family into it. He purchased a team of horses and the necessary equipment for starting farm work. Mother�s brother Sam came out from Indiana on a visit and offered to stay and do the farm work while Father worked in town to make the living. The land was hilly and of rocky soil, had never been cultivated and would not be productive for sometime. On this claim the family experienced the hardships and privations through which most of the pioneer settlers of Kansas passed. In the one room ten feet square the family lived that first winter. Mother was a good manager and was capable of making the best of all circumstances. Father had made a shelf near the ceiling around the entire room, under this Mother hung bags � these took the place of cupboards, dressers, trunks and like containers and took no floor space. It was necessary to take down the bed and put it out of doors when she did the washing. Grace could not learn to walk that winter as there was no place for her on the floor. I have heard Father say that even with these cramped conditions their house was much better than those of their neighbors as it was plastered, had two glass windows and a tight door. In the spring he built on two more rooms making the house thirty by ten feet. Some Indians still lived on the reservation and were friendly though not always convenient neighbors. I have heard Mother tell of waking one morning and seeing an Indian squaw standing by her bed with a bucket of wild gooseberries that she wanted to trade for coffee. Mother was an energetic woman and quick about her work and while she lived in this small house she occupied her spare time piecing all scraps of material that she had into quilts.

In November of 1870 I was born. On Saturday before this event Father was determined to get home. Seeing no farmer in town that he could ride even part way with, he got up at three o�clock in the morning and started to walk the thirty miles. He hoped to get his breakfast at Dick Bird�s, a friend living ten miles southwest but as this family was not up he walked on to Williamsbury, eight miles father where he got his breakfast. He reached home at noon saying that it seemed to take him almost as long to walk the last five miles as it did the first twenty-five and that he could hardly raise himself up the step to enter the house. That night Mother became sick and as there was no doctor near enough to summon, Father went for a neighbor woman who was accustomed to assist at such times. When I was born twenty-four hours later this woman suggested an Indian baby might have been left by mistake as I had long straight black hair.

In the spring of �71 Father decided that a man raised in New York City could never make a success of farming, so he traded his holdings for a lot in Ottawa on the corner of 8th and Poplar Streets. Working nights and any spare time he had, he built a small house and moved the family into it as soon as the floor was laid and the roof on. He later put in the partitions, lathed and plastered and finished the rooms doing the work at night with Mother holding the lamp. In this house Rob, Henry and Will were born. Here we had as neighbors two families who became lifelong friends. Mr. and Mrs. Woodman and The Berrys. Mrs. Woodman was a very fine English woman and she and Mother were very congenial. Mr. and Mrs. Berry and daughter, Josephine, had come from New York City and lived in the basement of the College building a block south of us. Mother had known Mr. Berry in New York � he was an Englishman who came from the English town which was the home of Dickens. They had lost a daughter about my age, and as they imagined I looked like her they took a special fancy to me and even asked Mother to let them adopt me. Mother promptly told them she had no children to give away but she loaned me often. After they moved on a farm I spent weeks at a time in their home. Usually these visits were made in the summer but once Mother let me go in the winter. I took sick and developed a serious case of pneumonia. I could not be taken home and as Mother had a young baby she could not go out there to care for me. Mrs. Berry gave me such efficient care that I recovered. They always treated me as one of their family.

In 1873 Father left Mr. Volrath�s employ and entered into a partnership with F.A. Beeler in the Furniture and Undertaking business in a rented building on the east side of Main Street. In 1876 Father took a trip back east and attended the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. As a curiosity he sent Mother a typewritten letter, written on the first typewriter he had ever seen. As a souvenir he brought a set of glass goblets shaped like the �Liberty Bell� with the crack plainly visible. In this year Aunt Laura and Uncle John Quin came out from New York to make their home and Charlie was born in the February following.

The business with Mr.Beeler continued three years but was not a success. They were obliged to make an assignment to their creditors and close up. Father�s credit with the wholesale firms was good so he started in business for himself under Mother�s name. This was done so that his property could not be taken for Mr. Beeler�s debts. He traded his house and lot for a store on Main St. and gave his note for the balance. Here he started his business which continued under the Chenoweth name for more than fifty years.

The family moved into the four rooms over the store. How thrilled we children were to live on Main Street and so near the school, though we did miss the big yard and the swing, and Mother must have missed the garden. Beside doing the work for her large family Mother assisted Father in the store, making the linings and trimmings for the coffins and taking care of the business when he was away attending funerals. He now made only the cheaper coffins and obtained the better ones from Kansas City. He also handled a fair stock of furniture and musical instruments. He also handled a fair stock of furniture and musical instruments. It was his habit when he got a little money ahead to go to Kansas City and buy a second hand organ to rent, and in time built up quite a business in this line. He bought and sold Estey organs and handled pianos on commission. About 1880 he had the frame store building moved back and a stone and brick building built in front of it. This added four more rooms to our home which were needed by the growing family. John an Laura were born here.

In 1881 Sister Fannie was married to Henry Dorman a cousin of Mother�s and went to live in Osborn county. About that time Brother Ed who had learned enough working with Father and in a furniture factory in Ottawa to be a skilled finisher of wood, went to Kansas City and worked a number of years on the interior of some of the fine homes that were then being built. In the fall of 1881 Uncle Ed came from Cincinnati on a visit with a view to locating in Kansas. He spent the winter with us and then his wife, Aunt Jude, came and they went to housekeeping in the old Woodman home and Uncle Ed obtained work in Gottschalk�s Furniture factory.

In the summer of �83 our store was destroyed by fire and with it the entire stock in the store and all of the house furnishings except some of the sitting room furniture which was taken out of the south window. How this fire started was always a mystery. It occurred on the third of July. Mother was ironing and baking for the 4th of July picnic. I was at the Chautauqua at Forest Park. Rob was supposed to be minding the store but was probably down the street a short distance where some boys had a lemonade stand. The other boys were out playing in the neighborhood. A man came up the outside stairs at the back of the house and told Mother the house was on fire. In a few minutes the smoke was rolling in. She took Laura, who was nineteen months old, in her arms and with Grace went down the front stairs and across the street to a neighbors. By that time the fire was too far advanced for it to be safe for her to return to get anything out. Father at the time was at the livery stable cleaning his hearse. Being a member of the volunteer fire company when he heard the bell he ran to the engine house and was there told it was his own store that was on fire. When he reached the store he found neighbors had closed the front door to prevent the fire from spreading to the store next door. He insisted that the new pianos in the front of the store which did not belong to him must be taken out and he went in himself and took hold of one but it was so hot it burned his hands and he was obliged to give it up. This fire was a four fold loss to him � the building which housed his business, the entire stock, our home and all its furnishings including all the clothing. Mother and the seven children had only the clothes they were wearing and the four boys were barefooted. I have often thought of the courage it required on the part of our Father, a man of 54 years, to start over again with an insurance of only $1500, the savings of years swept away and a family of seven children depending on him for support. While I wonder at the courage and energy exhibited by my father, I marvel at the fortitude of my mother. A few days after the fire she found there would be another baby in the spring. This meant an outfit of baby clothes in addition to the garments the present family must have and the added care, expense and responsibility of another child. But she never murmured or spent herself in self-pity. The motto �Welcome Little Stranger� on the pin cushion of each new baby�s layette truly expressed her attitude.

At the time of the fire � we always dated everything from the fire � we thought we had never been so well supplied with clothing. Mother�s life was too busy to do all the family sewing in those days so she had had an elderly woman in the home for six weeks, making white shirts for Father and clothes for all the children. I never heard Mother worry over the fact that all these things were burned but she did rejoice that the old lady had taken her trunk and gone the day before the fire.

Friends and neighbors, especially the members of the Baptist Church, offered their help in this emergency. Deacon Holt sent Mother a bolt of muslins and the ladies of the church made it up into sheets, pillow cases, underwear, and night clothes. Mother gladly accepted this help in the spirit in which it was given.

(to be continued)

Genealogy introduces you to great people. Perhaps it is their interest in family that makes them so remarkably friendly and giving. I was fortunate to have finally met Luverne in person at the 2002 reunion in Elkins. She and her husband Emmet had made the trip from California and were visiting their many relatives in West Virginia and Ohio. Luverne had signed into the site in March of 1999, but like many of the prodigious Chenoweth genealogists I have had the pleasure of meeting, her reputation had preceded her, and the contact itself was like meeting an old friend. She died suddenly this October and we all have lost a wonderful cousin. Even her name was remarkable to me. She went by her middle name and was the only Luverne among my 2,000 plus cousins contacts. Her first name, Eudora, is the Email program I have used for so many years. Harstine is a wonderful lush evergreen island found in the moss-soaked waters of Puget Sound where I have spent so much of my life. She was born Eudora Luverne Hanger, the daughter of Emma Reip and Richard Franklin Hanger on December 26, 1923 in Washington Co., OH, but I think her heart was in West Virginia, where her great grandmother, Edith Amanda Chenoweth was born and married to Adam Reip.

Dear Chenoweth cousins,

Where does the time go? Here we are at the jump off point for Baltimore - 2006. I can hardly believe the progress we've made with regard to these national family reunions. With this reunion, we will really have to establish a programming, planning and budgeting cycle so that the family knows what it takes to promulgate one of these efforts.

I recall, fondly, the two incidents that led to the creation of these modern Chenoweth get togethers. The first was my knowledge of a new Chenoweth history book being published. The occasion was an evening phone call from Emmet Harstine of Vacaville, California, who was calling to inform me that he had a copy of the book and that he had found my grandfather in it. Emmet was married to the late Luverne who is a Chenoweth cousin. He is also a fine tuba player who at that time held a spot on the back row of a brass band playing the Oomps while the main squeeze was inserting the Pahs from a row forward in the horn section of the same band. That's the Great Western Rocky Mountain Brass Band in August at Silverton, Colorado. Third week end. Ride the train. Be there.

Let me digress for a moment here and report that Luverne Harstine passed on on 28 October 2005 at home.

Anyway, we talked for quite a while and Emmet gave me the address of Richard Harris in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where I promptly purchased six copies and read mine from cover to cover. Seven-hundred-and-four pages. When I ordered, I invited, demanded, that Mr. Harris come to my home town in Indiana the coming year for the ninetieth birthday of our Mom and so we could chat face to face. And he did. And we did!

About the same time, I learned about the Chenoweth web site for family ancestry moderated by the venerable Jon Egge. I was surfing there one afternoon and came across a blog from Joyce Wiegand who wondered if it were possible to have a national family reunion. She said she couldn't organize it but she'd help out as needed.

Well now. One can't pass up an opportunity to meddle on a national level, can one? I answered back that I thought it could be done and I thought it should be done in Bowling Green, Kentucky, as it was centrally located, and the shtick would be to inform the cousins of the repository of the Chenoweth archive as a result of the Harris's work of forty years in Chenoweth genealogy.

Then, about one day, ten minutes, and a click on send came a "sounds good to me" message from Mike Chenoweth who said to "count him in". We soon discovered we had an Hoosier connection and the no brainer meeting location was the Allen County Library genealogy section at Fort Wayne which has been the long time alternate CP. That's Command Post for non infantry types.

Later, I hied myself to Bowling Green and set some things up and these two incidents, a phone call and a blog message created our biennial reunion meetings.

But, I'm writing for the main reason to apologize profusely and to Everyone for the gross lag in time to post up the information regarding the marvelous Portland - 2004 family reunion until just recently. The alibis and mitigating circumstances are viable but they don't do justice to the fine party we had.

In 2004, early on, the Mrs. and I decided we had to fix the old house or move out and let the Mexicans lay siege to it ala the Alamo. We arranged to have the work start following the Oregon meeting. As the world turned, the reunion update just never happened. In 2005, I spent ten months fussing with internet connections for the benefit of the family reunion website and then it was time to get them all up to date. I edit five of them.

The Holiday season is the time of year many of us think of going home, home to Grandmothers house. We hope many of you will join us in Baltimore, MD as we go �Over the river and through the woods� to our collective Grandparents homestead. Yes, many of us will do just that in August as we return to our beginning roots in America.

The 4th Biennial National Chenoweth Family Reunion starts on Wednesday, August 2, and ends on Sunday, August 6, 2006, in the Baltimore suburbs of Timonium, MD. This is where we will be celebrating the 300th wedding anniversary of John Chenoweth. While in Baltimore, some will search, some will research, some will discover, some will shop, and others will simply sightsee � it�s all up to you during the day. Jon Egge, the Chenoweth webmaster, will focus his presentation on Arthur and Richard the two brothers who stayed in this area after the rest of the family moved to Virginia. The largest number of families today in this area came from Arthur and his grandson William. There are many unknown lines that have never been placed in Baltimore. Most of these use the spelling of Chenowith or Chenworth and most are believed o have descended from Richard. The discussion will attempt to describe the difference in these two lines and what happened. Returning again this year is Diahan Southard of Relative Genetics of Salt Lake City, UT. She will report on the progress of the Chenoweth DNA Project. Participation in this project is vital to the male members of the family with the last name Chenoweth � in all its various spellings. The DNA test is pain free; it is a simple cheek swab inside the mouth that you can perform yourself with a kit provided by Diahan. The scheduled bus trip this year on Friday is to Ft. McHenry, we hope you will join us in this educational outing. Everyone is invited to bring their musical instrument and join in the Chenoweth All-American Group. The reunion concludes on Sunday morning, following the Inter Denominational Praise & Worship Service, brunch, and the biennial meeting and election of officers.

The 1st Biennial National Chenoweth Family Reunion was in 2000. We gathered in Bowling Green, KY, to see first hand the research notes of Richard and Shirley (Chenoweth) Harris, housed at the University of Kentucky in Bowling Green. Following the death of Shirley, Richard published The Chenoweth Family in America in the early 1990�s. With the book already out of print and receiving several requests for a reprint, the committee asked for and receiving permission from Richard Harris to do a reprint. The organizing committee chipped in and raised additional funds to finance the reprint of this wonderful book in time for the reunion.

The intent of the organizing reunion committee from the very beginning was to raise awareness of the American history of the Chenoweth family. The best way to accomplish this was to continually move the reunion site to different areas of the United States � take the reunion to the people.

The 2nd Biennial reunion in 2002 was in Elkins, WV. It was during the first reunion that Randy Allen volunteered to be the site host for 2002. The organizing committee learned the value of a site host for things to do and see in the area.

The 3rd Biennial reunion in 2004 was in Portland, OR. With some arm twisting, Al Chenoweth stepped up to the plate and was a valuable asset to the team. Al introduced reunion attendees to bus sightseeing adventures that proved very popular as well as educational.

The 5th Biennial reunion in 2008 is scheduled for Ft. Wayne, IN, home of the 2nd largest genealogical library in the United States. This is the place to wander through the open stacks of genealogical books. We are searching for someone in the Ft. Wayne area to be the local host.

Over 1,000 Chenoweth descendants will receive in the mail before January 15, 2006, registration information for the reunion. If the postman has not delivered your information by that time, there are several ways to get this information.