Loury

On this day in 1890 . . .

~ Lark Dalin Robart ~ Leave a comment

. . . my great great grandmother Margaret R. “Rebecca” (Loury) Blacker died in Macomb, McDonough County, Illinois. She died of “old age” and was buried on September 16th in Oakwood Cemetery in Block 2, Lot 50.

rebecca-blacker-cemetery-record

I know this information based on the record above, which was obtained from Oakwood Cemetery.1

Here’s what else I learned:

  1. Rebecca had at least three siblings: “Chris, Kate (Smith), Lydia, and “others”.
  2. Her maiden name – which I always thought was LOURY – may have been LOWER.
  3. Her mother’s name was MARY ULLERY.
  4. And my great grandfather David Lyman Blacker (listed above as “David”) was one of 14 children. Wow! Prior to obtaining this record, I only knew about three of those siblings, namely Elizabeth, Sarah and Jacob.

Lots and lots of new information! Sounds great, right? Wrong!

Armed with all this new information, I have searched and searched the names of Rebecca‘s siblings and the children I had never heard of and have come up with – absolutely nothing!  And I really am surprised by that outcome. Especially since I have maiden names for several of the daughters (i.e., Goudy, Mental and Stone).

One thing I have learned over the years, however, is that I have to be patient. I know my efforts and this “great new information” will result in some good stuff one of these days.

In the meantime, since I’m unable to visit the cemetery where Rebecca was buried, I was able to capture some interesting images using Google Earth and Google Maps.

oakwood-cemetery
Image from Google Maps, showing grave stones in the distance.

 

oakwood-cemetery-aerial-view-fr-google-earth
Image using Google Earth showing an aerial view of the cemetery.

And I can also share this wonderful photo of her grave stone, provided by a descendant of Rebecca‘s daughter Elizabeth (Blacker) Pearce.2

Margaret Blacker_tombstone_photo by Wendy Edwards

So ever onward. And here’s hoping for some “good stuff” in the near future!

NOTES
  1. I’ve written previously about this record here. ↩
  2. This photo and additional information was previously shared here. ↩

David Lyman Blacker: A Short Sketch of His Life and Road to Montana

~ Lark Dalin Robart
David Lyman Blacker
               David Lyman Blacker

David Lyman Blacker arrived in Virginia City, Montana in 1864 – during the exciting early days of the Montana gold rush, probably via the Montana Trail.  By 1866, he and his business partner, David Keating, had discovered the Keating Lode two miles northwest of Radersburg.  Several years later, they were also mining the Leviathan and Ohio Lodes, and had built a 15-stamp mill in order to process the many tons of rock being taken out of the mines.

In 1871, David married Ada Cordelia Buchenau in Wathena, Kansas, and brought her back to the Montana Territory where they made their first home in Radersburg.  In 1873, the Helena Weekly Herald reported that “very few men in all the mines of America have a “better thing” than have Messrs. Keating & Blacker” [1].  Later that same year, David and Ada welcomed the first baby into their family, a little girl named Muzetta.  She was the first of five children born to the couple between 1873 and 1889.

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