A Doug's Life: Finding heroes, skeletons in the closet

Commentary by Doug Spoon, Editor

While we scurry about town in our daily lives, we are occasionally reminded of the history that preceded us in Menifee.

The city itself was named after an 1800s miner named Luther Menifee Wilson. Several schools in town are named after city pioneers: Herk Bouris, Callie Kirkpatrick, Chester W. Morrison, Hans Christensen, and Kathryn Newport. Many streets are also named for historical figures, including Newport Road for pioneer rancher William Newport. Yet in the course of our daily activities, we don’t give it much thought.

But what about the history of your own people – your ancestors? How much do you really know about them, or do you even care?

Genealogy has become a hobby of mine, and I find that if you spend a little time on research, you might be fascinated by the stories of the family members who came before you. An activity that is increasing in popularity, family history work – including DNA matching – can be a rewarding pastime and may satisfy your natural curiosity.

Take my case, for example. I grew up knowing nothing about the Spoon name except that it is rather uncommon. I received the expected amount of teasing as a child; I remember an old man at church who, when seeing our family coming, would say, “There’s the tea spoon, the soup spoon, the table spoon…”

I knew nothing about any ancestors past my grandfather, who lived across the street from us. When for a school project I asked him where we came from, he said he only knew something about us being Pennsylvania Dutch. Surely there couldn’t be many people with the name Spoon in the whole world, I thought.

Then in my 40s, with the introduction of the internet and online research, I started learning things about my family. First, I now know there are at least three other Doug Spoons in the U.S., because I have spoken with them. But those are distant cousins. What about my direct line?

It was fairly easy to learn about my great grandfather, John Alvin Spoon, from old photos and stories I finally got from an aunt. John was a church-going, well-known citizen in his small town in Kansas who left the farm in the 1920s with family members to move to Southern California. But what about his father?

The family of John Alvin Spoon (1864-1952) on the family farm in Kansas.

In the pocket of an old vest my aunt kept was a note referring to Henry Spoon, who lived sometime in the 1800s. I wondered why no one could tell me anything about him. So I wrote to a librarian in the Indiana town where he supposedly lived for information.

Imagine my surprise when a letter arrived one day accompanied by a copy of a short newspaper clipping with the following information from August of 1877:

“Henry Spoon, an inmate of the Insane Asylum, accidentally killed himself last Friday trying to escape from the institution. He was lodged in the fourth story of the building and with another attempted their escape by means of a rope made of the bed clothes and extending from the window to the ground. He was the first to try the strength of the rope, but he had descended two stories when the rope broke and the injuries he received caused his death in a few hours.”

Ah, the proverbial skeleton in the closet. When I told that story to my aunt, she pleaded with me to keep it out of any family history I wrote. Sorry, Aunt Wanda, a writer knows a good hook when he sees one. But the rest of that story is for another day.

As doors began opening to me on the internet and in libraries across the country, I learned even more about the Spoons. My ancestors originally came from a tiny village in Germany named Hohenhaslach to America in the 1700s, settling first in Pennsylvania and later in North Carolina. In research trips to North Carolina, I have driven down country roads lined with cemeteries that have large headstones bearing the name Spoon. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so alone.

In fact, the original surname was Loffel – which means Spoon in German – or Loffler (spoon maker). I have seen in a display case in Raleigh, North Carolina some pottery that was made by a Loffler ancestor in the 1700s. Lots of craftsmen and farmers in my line, but no other writers that I know of. Thus I figure it’s up to me to tell the story to my descendants.

The 1779 confirmation certificate of John Spoon (Johannes Loffel) in German.

Since then, I continue to uncover amazing stories. Adam Reitzel II, my fourth great grandfather, was sailing to America with his wife and young son in 1755 when he was thrown overboard during a storm, never to be seen again. His wife was sold as an indentured servant upon arrival in South Carolina, to pay for her passage on the ship. Upon her release, she walked to Guilford County, North Carolina, where she knew family lived. By all accounts, it was a difficult journey.

Twice along the way, she abandoned young Adam Reitzel III and continued her journey, apparently thinking she'd never make it with the child in tow. Each time, however, she repented and returned to get her son. The story does not say whether she left the child in the care of others on those occasions or simply left him wandering by the side of the road.

I have discovered the names of ancestors who fought in World War I, the Civil War and the Revolutionary War. There are stories of heroism and stories of tragedy. But they’re my stories, dang it, and I’m proud to claim them.

There’s the story of Jake Spoon, a cowboy in Texas in the 1800s who supposedly was a horse thief and a scoundrel upon whom a character of the same name was included in the book “Lonesome Dove”. My 11th great grandfather on my mother’s side, Isaac Allerton, sailed on the Mayflower and was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact. I have traced my mother’s line back to British Royalty in the 1300s.

And the story is not over. I continue to search for and document others who have come before me. If I can do it, so can you. Start by asking your older relatives for information, visit ancestry.com, and have patience.

Then write me back with some stories of you own. They are meant to be remembered and shared.