Jen Caldwell, Brian Swagerty, Donna Swagerty Shreve
by Donna Swagerty Shreve
This year I looked forward to Thanksgiving with excitement and trepidation. Just under 40 family members were expected. The actual number in attendance was 33. It is a pot luck affair with various family members bringing dishes to compliment the turkeys. My mother always brought the pies so I continued that tradition with Mary Lou, my sister-in-law, adding a family favorite of apple crisp pie.
My brother, Brian, and I have been writing family stories for several years. Mary Lou added her voice and we now have just over 600 stories. We also have gathered and labeled family photos and artifacts. Maps were created of the various ancestors’ routes across the country as they migrated from the east coast to California. Time lines and family trees have been posted. The only thing missing was anyone reading the website. swagertystories.com
One of the goals of Thanksgiving was to create interest in the family website. I realized, as I did more and more research, and added with Jennifer’s research, we had quite a group of characters who had been up to quite a few shenanigans. Jen is my niece and is my sister’s oldest. She caught the genealogy bug and we are certainly richer for it. I easily listed 27 incidents and asked Brian to add three of his. Brian checked each item to make sure it was listed somewhere in a story on our website. Some of the family lore is well known but had not been written down.
Now that the list was done, how was the best way to present it? I had silly gifts I had collected over the years. Among the prizes were old fashion toys from bygone eras. The family is competitive and up for fun. Brian, Jen, and I had bounced quite a few ideas around on how to present our family history. There are commercial cards available that can be personalized for various card games. Bingo cards were discussed as another way to present the material. Finally we went simple and made the game a research into the website game.
Brian had sent out our the first 10 questions out to all who were going to attend. It was an opportunity to get a head start. Brian was the facilitator and the teams were easily created into the five of Brian’s and Mary Lou’s children and my two boys, grandson and husband became another. Several teams had done the pre research and ready to play. Every team gathered a few prizes so I was thrilled as my prizes were gone and into good homes.
Brian also handed everyone a family tree chart so each person in the room was to write down their ancestors going back several generations. New information was gathered and will be put on the website to extend the current family trees.
Jen had several binders from Arkansas, Alabama, and Tennessee she brought with her. My second goal of Thanksgiving was in hoping that Jen’s trip was worth the effort. She has not been amongst her cousins for eight years. My youngest, Brad, visits once a year but he also had not been among cousins for eight years. The best bonding among the cousins happened when the old folks left. John and I, then Brian and Mary Lou, headed on home while the next generation still had some catching up to do. Jen was approached by several of her cousins asking questions and showing interest in her research. Jen is sending various information requests to several cousins.
Thanksgiving was declared a success by us. We got cousins together and new family stories were shared and passed on. Also Brian, Mary Lou, and I realized the next generation is now in charge. We were given a brief time on stage but the gathering is now in new hands.
Swagerty Shenanigans
1. ________________ She was accused of being a witch and kicked out of her church in Arkansas long after the Salem Witch Trials.
2. ________________ He wrapped a live rattle snake around his hat at a barn dance before trying to get someone to dance with him in Idaho.
3. ________________ He hid his family in a hay stack for several days during a Civil War battle on his property in Arkansas.
4. ________________ He escaped being killed by Natives that had surrounded his wagon train while traveling west to go gold mining.
5. ________________ He had a son and daughter killed in their German church during the Revolutionary War by British soldiers.
6. ____________________ She found her grandmother dead in a rocking chair on the front porch in Arnold, Iowa.
7. ___________________ She snucked out of the second floor bedroom on a ladder to go to a dance with her boyfriend in Hughson, California.
8. ________________ She had to tell her father he was terminally ill, because the doctor and her mother couldn’t do it. He died at age 78 of stomach cancer in Hughson, California.
9. ________________ She flashed her husband on Halloween as a mystery trick-or-treater while their neighbor in Stockton took care of her young children.
10. _______________ He survived a blow to his head by a baseball bat welded by a neighbor hitting marbles off the ground in the Lincoln Village neighborhood in Stockton.
11. _______________ She had a guy crawl out a bathroom window after half an hour to escape finishing a date with her. Her good friend Ann had set her up while she was visiting her in college.
12. _______________ He worked several years with his younger brother in the Anaconda copper mine in Montana before moving to Idaho.
13. _______________ This person was involved in a commando-style operation during college resulting in the early burning of a rival’s homecoming bon-fire.
14. _______________ He came west on a wagon train to be a gold miner and then returned to Missouri.
15. _______________ She had a legal abortion in 1923 after giving birth to 5 children and getting pregnant too soon after a difficult pregnancy.
16. ______________ She was apprehended by agents for bringing a gun to the Sacramento airport as she was sending her husband cross country for a possible cancer treatment.
17. _______________ After 21 years of marriage, he divorced his wife and eloped with an 18 year old and lied about their ages on the marriage certificate when they eloped to Salt Lake City, Utah.
18. _______________ She lived to the ripe old age of 101 years with all of her marbles.
19. _______________ He weighed 12 pounds at birth and rolled over on his own at 3 days. His mother barely survived his home birth.
20. _______________ She died at age 85 after raising 9 children. Her last years were spent traveling and living with various children in California.
21. ________________ This person evaded arrest from the Salt Lake City Police Department and then helped his friend who was captured and escaped but needed his handcuffs removed.
22. _______________ He married four times to three different women and lied on two census and one marriage certificate.
23. _______________ He refused to serve in the US army in protest of war.
24. _______________ He had a tea kettle routine when he was in a very good mood and all of his 5 children knew the signal it sent to his wife.
25. _______________ He fell out of a moving car and was found with a torn seat of his pants but hanging on to his donut near Milpitas.
26. _______________ This person was involved in a dorm prank where he and his dorm mates moved and replicated their RA’s dorm room into the bathroom while he was celebrating his 21st birthday.
27. _______________ He was named after a president but had to wait 9 months for the 1864 election to be decided before he was named.
28. ______________ He was involved in giving special Swagerty haircuts at Thanksgiving gatherings to both brother Jack Swagerty and nephew Richard Burton and threatened nephew Tom Burton. The brother-in-law Harry Burton had a close shave at his bachelor party.
29. _______________ Without an education past 10th grade, he wrote a book of poetry on family that has been passed down through the generations.
30. _______________ Her grandmother liked to show her off at the bar and would pull up her dress to show off her scar
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