Charles Cicero Codling –– 52 Ancestors
My Dad’s father, Charles Cicero Codling, was born December 25, 1875, in Oxford, Ontario, Canada, the second of eight children born to Stephen and Phebe Ann (Hersee) Codling.
According to his birth record, his father was a tailor and the family lived in Blenheim; a Dr. Terryberry assisted in his birth, which was registered a month later on January 24, 1876. A quick search on both FindAGrave.com and Ancestry.com shows the good doctor in the 1871 census of Canada: Jacob Gilbert Terryberry, age 24, married to Mary Ann Terryberry, working as a medical doctor in Blenheim, and of the Methodist faith.
I’m adding this only because it’s a good example of why it’s a good idea to revisit documents you may have collected decades earlier. I never paid attention, previously, to the name of the physician who helped my great-grandmother during labor. Plus, it’s an interesting name.
Speaking of interesting names, my grandfather’s middle name always makes me grin. Cicero. Really? It just seems incongruous, to me, kind of like the old-fashioned names “Alonzo” (think “Little House on the Prairie”) or “Orlando.” And it gets better: the name stems from the Latin word cicer, which translates to “chickpea,” according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero). The article states that Greek historian Plutarch wrote that Cicero was a nickname given to one of Marcus’ ancestors “who had a cleft in the tip of his nose” resembling the legume.
I wonder if Grandpa knew that.
Anyway, Stephen moved his family from Blenheim, landing first in the Algoma District of Ontario in Dennis Township, according to the 1881 Canada census. Dennis Township appears to no longer exist, but was just north of Sault Ste. Marie on Goulais Bay, not far from the infamous Whitefish Bay where the Edmund Fitzgerald may have found safety if she had launched just a bit earlier, according to songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.
Again, I digress.
At some point, Stephen purchased land in the U.S. Dakota Territory in what today is Barnes County, North Dakota. The 1885 territorial census shows them in the town of Gragreen; Charles is about 10 years old. They were still living there in 1896, when Stephen bought more land in that county; a year later, just days before his 22nd birthday, Charles enlisted in the U.S. Army at Fort Wayne in Detroit, Michigan.
Assigned to Co. K of the 10th Infantry, he was sent to Cuba to fight in the Spanish-American War, which spanned from April 1 to December 10, 1898. He was discharged at Havana, Cuba, on January 5, 1899. Dad always told me that he had to make his own way back home from Florida, while suffering from malaria contracted during the war.
By that time, his family had moved east to Michigan, and in the 1900 census, Charles was living with his mother and siblings in Arthur Township, Clare County, Michigan, working on his mother’s farm. His father and two of his sisters were living elsewhere. But that story will be told in another installment.
Of course, if you’ve been reading this blog, you may remember that this was where Charles met my grandmother, Lovina Amanda Hackett, whom he married in 1902. All of their children, except my father, were born there. Dad was born in 1917, after they moved to Panama, Harmony Township, Chautauqua County, New York.
Charles returned to Jackson, Michigan, in September 1925; he was the informant who signed Stephen’s death certificate and, I suppose, made arrangements for his burial in the city cemetery. It is very likely there was no funeral; Stephen was not a beloved member of the family for a number of reasons. Writing about him will be interesting.
When they retired, selling their grocery and hotel to their son, Howard K. Codling around 1935, Charles and Lovina moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where one of his brothers and one of his daughters had moved. I think they all may have been land speculators. Lovina’s father, Josiah Hackett, and his second wife, Axie Carney, also lived in Florida for a time in a town that was populated mostly by Union Civil War veterans.
My grandmother, Lovina, died in 1939; in the 1940 census, Charles and Dad were living at 4618 Park Street in Jacksonville, Florida. Shortly after that, Dad married his first wife, Helen Hildebrandt, and they moved to her hometown of Parma, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
Charles also married again; his second wife was Florence Cleo (Horne) Campbell. She had several children, including Ruby Virginia, who married James Arthur Mooneyham, who also were living nearby in Jacksonville. I don’t know a lot about them, but they were mentioned in the society pages of the local newspaper often.
Somewhere, I hope, I have a photo of Florence, in which I think she is holding a cat out in the yard of their Florida home. Unfortunately, I can only see it in my mind; I didn’t yet have a scanner the last time I laid eyes on it.
Charles’ life story also gives me a chance to suggest that when you are doing your own family history research, it’s important to occasionally do a “global” search on your favorite search engine, such as Google.
A few years ago, I did just that and I found something amazing. There is a man out west (can’t recall, but Kansas perhaps) who collects military items and is a very serious collector, at that. He had posted photographs of a uniform in his collection; it was from the Spanish-American War and, believe it or not, written in pencil on the inside of the jacket was the name Charles C. Codling. I couldn’t believe my eyes!
I actually wrote to the man to ask if he was interested in selling it, and he gave me good advice. First, he suggested that I probably couldn’t afford what he would ask for it, and even if I could, it’s best in his possession, as he keeps the uniforms he has collected in controlled environment, as would be found in a museum.
That is one serious collector.
Someday, I would like to go there and “visit” my grandfather’s U.S. Army uniform, but for now I am satisfied with just having photos of it to go with the portrait I have of him wearing it, above.
Charles died on another holiday, New Year’s Day 1952 in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, not quite a year after my parents were married. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think Charles and Florence traveled to Van Wert, Ohio, for the wedding. He may have been too ill to attend. From what I can tell, Florence married again and lived in Cabarrus, North Carolina, where she died in May 1980.
The only other photo I have of Charles is of him posing outside the Florida house with my newlywed mother on one side and my Dad’s sister, Aunt Iris, on the other. A rose between two thorns, as my Dad might say. Though, I have my suspicions it would definitely be the other way around.
Charles was cremated and his ashes spread over the Atlantic Ocean, as were his wishes. So there is no headstone to visit, which makes it all the more important to me to make that trip to see his uniform.
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