Connections
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I'll bet these merchants never dreamed that their newspaper ad would reach out and touch someone a over a hundred years later!
I used to sell newspaper advertising years ago, as did my father, and you can bet that this is one advantage that we overlooked when making our sales pitches to prospective advertisers.
I was tickled to hear from the great-great-granddaughter of the Memphis merchants who ran this ad in 1876. Jean Rawlings Meaney writes,
"I thought I knew everything I was going to know about my great grandparents Richard Jackson I and his wife Sarah Frances "Fannie" Venable. I knew their ancestors, descendants, dates of birth and death, how they died, when they came to Memphis, etc. I know the date of their marriage (1873), where they married (Idlewild Presbyterian Church) and the name of the minister who married them. I even have a photograph of my great grandmother's wedding dress! The house they lived in still stands in Memphis. My grandfather's Confederate military history was found in the Indigent Confederate Widow's pension application which my great grandmother filed for when she was 81. So I could not imagine what other information I could possibly find.
Recently, I stumbled on The Olden Times web site (I am really not sure how I got there) and searching for the last name Rawlings, I found an ad from The Memphis Avalanche in 1876 for the Venable-Rawlings Lumber Yard and Sawmill. I had not known the two families were in business together. What a thrill to find that! I immediately printed out the ad and put it in my Ancestor scrapbook and sent the web site to all the cousins and second cousins.
Additionally, I found a small blurb about sale of some Memphis land which had been owned by J. H. Rawlings, Richard's father, my great great grandfather.
What an exciting idea and service that Barbara is performing for all of us searching for our family histories! Thank you, Barbara."You're certainly welcome, Jean! The pleasure is all mine!